Gyakuun
by Marie9
Summary: When meitantei Kuroba Kaito suddenly winds up shrunk after getting on the wrong side of strange men in black suits he ends up living with Kudo Shinichi, who has some secrets of his own to keep...AU with some role changes and other assorted twists.
1. Chapter 1

Plot bunnies knawing at my brain again! AU plotbunnies to boot! THEY'RE EVIL. Enjoy and R&R if you'd like to see more!

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"So _now_ you show up, after he's stolen the painting and left us this mess hours ago already. Typical, Kuroba, typical."

Nakamori Ginzo-keibu followed this irritated statement to the famous teen meitantei Kuroba Kaito with an icy glare as his investigative team continued to survey the scene in the museum of yet another impossible-seeming robbery committed by the daring thief who had come to be nicknamed the Black Fox by the police chasing him.

The elusive robber had never even been caught yet on any sort of camera, but his signature was to leave a small black plush fox behind with a note around its neck that simply read 'Thank you' in distinctly masculine handwriting. All efforts to find the manufacturer of the fox toy or the paper used for the notes had proved fruitless so far and the police were getting very frustrated, especially when even the special task force they'd put together to stop the thief was getting nowhere in a hurry.

What was most interesting to the police, and especially to Kaito- the thing that had first piqued the tantei's interest and steered him towards investigating the thief in his free time when he wasn't busy with his usual murders, really- was the fact that the Black Fox inexplicably, strangely _always_ returned what he took, and the thief had always done so since his bizarre brand of larceny had begun a little over a year and a half ago. When the first item had been returned it was automatically assumed to be a clever fake, but it had been quickly found to be the genuine article - as was the case with every subsequent item.

In fact, the police were having a difficult time even finding victims of his crimes that were willing to file charges against Black Fox because they knew that the items would be returned if they were patient. Within a week or two, whatever thing that the thief had made off with in his heist was discovered carefully wrapped up in a neat box that matched the object's size, invariably left right on the doorstep of the Tokyo police headquarters for extra hilarity provided to the public at the expense of the police's furious embarrassment.

The local media always had a field day with thier reports when the thief left his returned 'presents', and captions that poked fun at the police's helplessness in the Fox's wake such as the most recent one from three weeks ago- 'CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR THE POLICE' in large type below a zoomed in picture of the neatly wrapped gift still sitting on the headquarter's stoop- were becoming commonplace and an irritant to the police in general and Nakamori in particular, who headed the anti-Fox investigation unit that had become known simply as Hound both inside and outside of law enforcement.

"Well, you didn't have Aoko call me and wake me up to come here until after you were nearly done already processing the scene this time, keibu," replied Kaito with a smirk and dismissive shrug as he shook his head a bit to get the blood flowing to his brain. _Ugh...need coffee..._ "How is that my fault?"

"It's your fault for staying up late and not waking up till past noon every day we have off of school if left to your own devices," stated Nakamori Aoko as she approached her longtime friend from behind and gave Kaito a sound whack to the head with a nearby drop cloth. "It's just a wee bit embarrassing when you call your b-" After quickly realizing the massive slip of the tongue she had been about to make, she thought fast and corrected the rest of the phrase by finishing with "_-est friend _and have to make him get his butt out of bed at ten A.M. in front of several police it makes you look bad, me look bad and makes Dad look bad too." _Ugh, careful Aoko, the idiot doesn't know how you really feel about him yet..._

"Well, it's my day off, and last I heard sleep was good for you." He ended this sentence by yawning while covering his mouth, then sticking his tongue out at Aoko before turning back to the man who had summoned him. "So it was a painting this time, keibu?" The other puzzling thing about Black Fox was that there was no consistency to what he took, no apparent rhyme or reason to his burglaries beyond him taking things and returning them. Places as varied as low-end malls and million-dollar museums had been targeted, and the always-returned objects pilfered just as broad in scope.

"Yeah, this painting, Lady of the Dawn," stated Nakamori flatly as he pointed to a photo of it that was included in a tour guide. "The museum's external security company that manages thier sensors and alarms as well as the patrols said that the painting's sensors got triggered at eleven P.M. and they couldn't contact any of the guards here. When the first unit of police got here about eleven-twenty they found all three guards who were supposed to be patrolling the floor tied up and unconsious in the guard room, the usual fox plush animal with note attatched sitting by them. Stupid damn plush animal," Nakamori finished while gritting his teeth.

"Makes you wonder if he's working alone or not," offered one of the officers working the scene hesitantly after having overheard the discussion. "No way one guy can overpower three others by himself in a fight. Maybe he has a partner who works with him."

"Or he used a sleeping gas of some sort before he tied them up," offered Kaito mildly as he amusedly pointed to a small canister that was laying on the floor in front of an air vent that looked like it had been pried open from the inside. "That would do it, too."

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"So, oh infalliable meitantei Kaito, savior of the Japanese police force, what do you think of the Black Fox? Dad's getting really frustrated with him, assuming it's a guy," Aoko inquired brightly in a joking tone as they walked through Tropical Land a few hours later, thier present location the food and knickknack booths surrounding the park's Mystery Coaster, which had a packed, long line for it like always. Aoko was currently nibbling on a large helping of cotton candy in a stick, and Kaito adamantly refused to admit to himself how cute she looked while she was eating it.

"Well, never assume anything; could be a male or female. But to answer your question, I find some of thier methods unusual, and the fact that they always return the items is obviously way out of the usual M.O. for a burglar," replied Kaito, grateful for the distraction. _Stupid girl, stupid cotton candy... _"I almost wonder sometimes if they aren't an extremely intelligent kleptomaniac, but it seems like they go to an awful lot of trouble to plan and execute these heists, as well as going to the danger and trouble of packaging up and returning the items later when there are far easier ways to satisfy those kinds of urges. The fact that they return them also seems on the surface to rule out klep-"

Just then a loud scream issued from the direction of the roller coaster's loading and unloading area, and Kaito's blood began to race, sensing that here was a murder- just the mental excercise that he'd been craving all morning since leaving the Fox's latest crime scene frustrated at his inability to make any headway into the thief's exceedingly strange behavior or his true identity. Kaito did strongly suspect that the thief was a male, though age range was still difficult to determine without additional evidence and he most definitely had no concrete evidence pointing at gender yet.

"Let me guess, we have to go over there," sighed Aoko as she polished off the last of her treat. "Figures; murder seems to follow you like a shadow, or so Dad always says."

"It's somehow _my_ fault that I get involved in murder cases regularly when _I'm a detective _and I'm called in to help solve them?" queried Kaito in half-angry reply before someone in the crowd surrounding the coaster after the scream recognized him and pointed.

"It's Kuroba Kaito, the well-known meitantei!"

"If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it's him!"

"The savior of the police!"

Kaito put on a million-watt grin for his fans while pulling out a flower from thin air, barely hearing Aoko's "I can see his head swelling like a balloon" over the clapping and cheering that ensued from the packed crowd. Besides detecting, his other passion was magic- after all, not only had his father been a magician before his unexpected death when Kaito had been eight, but the tantei strongly felt that the mental and physical conditioning both required to memorize and perform the sleight of hand tricks were an enormous boon in his detective work.

"A murder? Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this..."

Twenty minutes later, he had (correctly, of course) named the ex-girlfriend as the murderer and revealed the technique she had used to commit the crime, but Kaito had become suspicious enough of the two gentlemen dressed from head to toe in black that had been in his suspect pool that he decided to follow them and find out what exactly was going on, hiding himself behind a nearby wall after deciding that it would be risky to get any closer. He had already made his excuses to Aoko, not wanting her to follow him or be involved because his gut was telling him that something Very Bad was going on here.

"Sorry I made you wait, Mr. CEO," stated the heavier-set of the pair as he walked towards a very nervous-looking man in a tan suit.

"Look, I came by myself, just like you said!" cried the other man, clutching a briefcase to him like his life depended on it.

"I know you did...I checked to make sure from the top of that roller coaster..."

_So that's why they were on the coaster...to check whether this guy came alone?_

"C'mon, gimme the thing..." pleaded the CEO in a quavering voice.

"Don't be so impatient...the money comes first..." replied the black-suited man in a serious tone.

"HERE! No problem, right?!" cried the CEO, opening a suitcase to expose what Kaito guessed had to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 million yen, his eyes widening slightly as he added the bills up in his head.

"Right. The deal is complete!" responded the other man after taking the suitcase and examining the bills in it closely.

"Now gimme the film..."

"Here ya go! Film of your company's gun smuggling. You shouldn't be so naughty!" the first man finished in a jubilant tone as he tossed a roll of film at the CEO.

"Shut up! Compared to the stuff you guys do, we're-" cried the CEO as Kaito quickly dug his small camera out of a coat pocket and began to take pictures. _Always be prepared..._

"I wouldn't say any more, for your sake," replied the other man as he holstered his gun and walked away from the meeting spot with the cash-filled suitcase in hand.

"Shut up, you filthy hyenas!" demanded the CEO as Kaito kept snapping pictures of the incident, fully focused on what was going on in front of him.

A nearly fatal mistake on his part, and one that would wind up greatly altering the course of the magician tantei's life.

"Your detective game," began a voice from behind him as Kaito realized too late that he had entirely forgotten about the second man in black, "is OVER!"

Suddenly, the world exploded into stars, darkness and pain as Kaito felt something very, very hard hit him squarely over the top of the head. He faded in and out of consciousness as the two men held a conversation.

"...little shit...trailing us..."

"...kill him?"

"...pigs still...that shit earlier..."

"...use this...poison..."

Just then, Kaito felt himself get very roughly turned over as a double image of the blonde-haired man appeared in front of his eyes.

"...tested it...humans..."

Kaito felt his mouth get opened as the man tilted his head back and placed something into it that felt like a pill, followed by a glass being placed to his lips that was filled with water; he couldn't help the instinctual swallow reflex and swallowed whatever it had been with the water.

"...little guinea pig..."

The man then dumped him back down on the ground.

"So long, Detective!"

Somehow, he heard those parting words from the blonde clear as a bell before his entire body felt like it had been set on fire, a sensation which lasted a good three minutes before the meitantei passed out from the pain.


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, 10 watchers and 5 reviewers already :) Hope you enjoy!

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_Ugh...head...pounding...can't...see...straight...what did they...do to me? _

Kaito was laying in what felt like a wonderfully soft, warm bed in the midst of a half-regaining of his consciousness, the meitantei just thankful to be alive at this point after what he unequivocally determined had been a very nasty near-death experience. Those men had had _absolutely_ every intention of killing him back there and he knew it; so did the huge pit of fear now occupying his stomach when he thought back to the events. _Stupid...so stupid...how could I have forgotten about the second guy? I let him get the drop on me...Pure carelessness..._

His pounding headache and aching body wouldn't allow him to continue enjoy the feeling of the bed too much as he woke up a little more; he recalled the awful sensation that he'd been on fire before blacking out with a wince. After a few more moments, he idly realized that the bed he was laying in was most definitely not his own; no way his own bed was this soft or this blue, and the walls were a pale cerulean instead of the eggshell hue of his own room. The panic-laced adrenaline that quickly began coursing through his veins caused Kaito to try and sit upright in order to survey the room better only to discover that he couldn't because he ached too much still. _What is this? It's like every single bone in my body is aching...from a hit to the head?_

He took the room he was laying in in more detail, and he realized that for all its comforts, it seemed...soulless and temporary, transient, as if the illusion of warmth, ownership and life had been painted over the space like a well-executed trompe-l'œil. _Maybe a guest bedroom? _The fact that there were absolutely no knickknacks of any sort on the dresser and nightstand shelves as well as the fact that there were no decorations on the walls beyond the plain blue curtains in spite of the room possessing a full compliment of furniture seemed to bear this fact out, but Kaito wanted to investigate further before he came to any conclusions. _Well, if my body will cooperate and let me poke around...Ugh..._

Just then, he heard a muffled-sounding feminine voice accompanied by ever-louder footsteps on the other side of the door and Kaito quickly decided to feign unconsciousness until he could assess the situation better and decide on a plan of action. He hurriedly finished tucking himself into an approximation of his original position as the bedroom door opened.

"How is he, Ran? Any better?" called a youthful male voice from somewhere distant in the house that sounded remakably similar to Kaito's own - when Kaito wasn't imitating someone else's voice, that was. _Hmm, what sounds like a first name and no honorative...the owner of that voice and the person who walked in here must be very close, _Kaito figured before hearing soft footsteps approach the bed and feeling a gentle hand placed on his forehead.

"His fever's way down from when we first found him- he doesn't even feel hot anymore, which is good," came the pleasant, now clear young female voice from directly above his head. _Reminds me a little of Aoko's voice, _he realized as he tried to suppress a smile while willing himself to lay perfectly still. "If he wakes up soon he can eat with us, if he's feeling well enough to eat some solid food," the voice finished before the hand was removed and the footsteps carried towards the door. A few seconds later, the gentle snick of the door shutting indicated that the girl had left.

About ten minutes later, the most amazing food smells Kaito could ever remember partaking in smelling came drifting in under the doorway, causing his nose to twitch and his stomach to growl ravenously. _Now for that I'll get up even through this pain, _he thought happily as he slowly, painstakingly made his way out of the bed. He blinked twice after getting out of the bed, nearly falling in the process, and realizing that things were...tall.

Very, strangely tall, and large to boot.

Why was the middle of the bed dead square in his line of sight?

Kaito was still puzzling over this when he saw his clothes neatly folded up on the plush white chair that was in the room; he was only too happy to get dressed and he walked over to the oddly large chair as fast as his aching body could carry him, stripping off the robe he had been wrapped up in.

Until he realized that the clothes he was trying to change into were several sizes too large. And the robe he had been wearing was small. Like, _child-size_ small.

_OK, what in the world is going ON here? _

Kaito knew at this point that there was something exeedingly odd going on and he decided that he needed to figure out why the world had suddenly grown larger around him before beginning to tackle any of the other issues, including where he was at and why he had been brought here. His only comfort as he thought about his current situation was that he wasn't dead, so whoever owned this house must have found him passed out and brought him to thier home- and they didn't want him dead. He also immediately found his cellphone laying out on one of the dressers once he had started looking for it, battery still intact and power still on, so they weren't trying to cut him off from contact with anyone- also a good sign, he figured.

Now nature was calling- only natural, he supposed, after having been passed out for several hours judging by the time now displaying on his cell phone- so he decided to head out of the room to try and find the water closet. He reached up for the oddly high doorknob and slowly opened the door before stepping out into the hallway, hearing what sounded like two pairs of footsteps begin to head his way once he'd shut the door behind him.

"Aha, I thought I heard him up and about," said the feminine voice after two people had entered the hallway, that voice attatched to a girl that looked so much like Aoko that Kaito might have thought it _was _her except for the fact that this girl's hair was much neater and her voice was different...and she was much taller than Aoko was. _But she and Aoko look roughly the same age, so why does it seem like she's nearly double my height if not more than that...?_

"Good to see you're looking so much better- you looked like you were on the verge of death when we found you back at Tropical Land," commented the owner of the male voice that had been similar to his; the guy could have been Kaito's own twin except for the fact that his eyes were much bluer and his hair was also a little neater. He knelt down and placed a hand on Kaito's shoulder before adding "Don't worry, you can eat with us before we call your house- Ran is a great cook," he added while pointing his thumb at the girl behind him. _Wait- He looks my age, why is he having to kneel down to touch my shoulder?_

"Oh, c'mon, Shinichi, quit trying to sucker me into coming over more than once a week to cook already," the girl, apparently named Ran, replied with a blushing smile as she leaned over and socked the boy gently on the back of his shoulder. "You need to learn to cook for yourself, too, silly- your parents are always gone."

"Where's your water closet?" Kaito finally managed to get out, and the boy, apparently named Shinichi, pointed him to a door immediately to his right before lifting himself up and leaving with Ran to finish up dinner preparations. Kaito entered only to find that the current bizarre, inexplicable enlargement of the world was continuing- The mirror was up so high that he couldn't even see himself in it, and he found to his horror that he actually had to turn the small metal trash can upside down and climb on it to avail himself of the facilities (after emptying the can, of course.) As he washed his hands, the tantei reflected on the weirdness of the situation.

_Why is everything so big all of a sudden? I can't see myself in the water closet mirror, my own clothes that i was wearing a few hours ago are now several sizes too large, I was wearing a kid-size robe when I woke up, I had to reach to my tiptoes to be able to turn a doorknob-_

As Kaito turned off the water and went to dry his hands, he realized that he had been looking at the whole situation backwards.

With growing horror, it dawned on him that the most likely explanation for everything being so strangely out of proportion for him since his awakening was _not_ that everything in the world was growing larger. _Could it...could it possibly be that I've somehow-? _Determined to get to the root of all this-but suspecting with growing dread and confusion that he now knew what that root was, however improbable it seemed on the surface- Kaito decided that he was _going _to take a look at himself in the mirror regardless of the effort he had to expend to get there. He grabbed the metal trash can and drug it to the sink, using it as a stepstool to get onto the countertop below the mirror before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath and daring to look at his reflection.

He nearly fell off the countertop from sheer shock as a six-year-old face greeted him.

He rubbed his eyes after he recovered, not wanting to believe what he was seeing, but he knew with a chill in his heart that he had somehow, impossibly, shrunk back into his six-year-old body. After he finished rubbing his eyes, he dared to look in the mirror again and was greeted with the same six-year-old reflection he'd seen previously- a reflection which mimiced his movements perfectly when he moved. Kaito was still staring in the mirror, somewhat awestruck and dumbfounded, when a knock came on the door.

"Did you fall in or something? You've been in there an awfully long time. Dinner's ready, if you want to eat. Chicken curry on rice, one of Ran's specialties," came Shinichi's voice from the other side of the door, snapping Kaito out of his reverie. He shook his head, then quickly got down from the countertop and replaced the trash can while still reeling from the shock of having his bizarre, ridiculous hypothesis somehow confirmed. _But how did this happen? How COULD it happen?_

It was then he remembered that they'd fed him some kind of pill with water, but what pill would cause a seventeen-year-old body to shrink back down to a six-year-old one? None that Kaito knew of, that was for certain. He opened the door and journeyed out the way he had seen the pair leave earlier, finding them both sitting and waiting for him at the table.

"There you are. Dig in, we can call your parents after we're done eating," stated Ran with a smile as Kaito took a seat. "You're so cute! You look so much like Shinichi when we were that age," she added before the three began to eat.

_I AM your age, _Kaito wanted to scream, but something in his gut told him to keep this information to himself for the time being.


	3. Chapter 3

Time for more! Review and let me know what you think!

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_A guy shouldn't have to spend one of his first days after turning seventeen being forced to act like a little kid. _Kaito decided this rather quickly after beginning the meal with the two teens who had apparently brought him home after finding his shrunken self unconscious back at Tropical Land, sulking internally as he made a bit of a deliberate mess at the table while eating but also thoroughly enjoying the food and deciding that Shinichi's compliment of Ran's cooking ability had been both very correct and well deserved. _Of course, a good place to start with this mess would probably be figuring out what the hell happened to me...what could they have possibly given me that would cause me to revert to a kid like this? What was in that pill that they gave to me that caused me to wake up in a child's body? Is this permanent or temporary? Too many questions, gah!_

"So what's your name?" asked Ran politely as she turned her head towards Kaito, causing the meitantei to completely freeze up for a moment as his mind drew a complete blank from the sheer panic that had just ensued- a very rare event for him that he was most definitely not used to and was only causing him to panic even more.

_Crap! I knew that one or the other of them would ask that sooner or later. I probably shouldn't tell them my real name- Not only will they probably not believe me even if I _did_ tell them, but I'm also supposed to be dead. And I have this weird feeling that it might be in the best interests of both Mom and I if I were to_ stay_ dead, at least for the time being..._Having decided to lie about his name, the shrunken magician quickly began scanning his eyes around the room, desperately hoping for either his mind to quit blanking out or his eye to catch something that would fuel his inspiration while he played for time to answer by taking a particularly large bite of food and chewing as slowly as he could.

Suddenly, his favorite books leapt to his mind, most likely triggered by the fact that a well-worn paperback Sherlock Holmes mystery (The Hound of the Baskervilles, to be precise) was laying cracked open by Shinichi's side on the table while he was eating. The Lupin series by Maurice Leblanc, which Kaito read religiously because he felt it helped him gain insight into a criminal's mind (albeit the protagonist of that series, Arsène Lupin, was no ordinary criminal, so maybe it was because he just really liked the books) were fresh in his mind and inspiration suddenly struck him like lightning. Kaito could barely suppress a wide, smug grin of self-satisfaction and contentment as he looked up and suddenly, confidently replied "Ookami. Ookami Kihagi, nee-san" with a bright smile on his face.

"Nice to meet you, Kihagi," Ran replied with a smile. "I'm Mouri Ran, and this mystery otaku over here is Kudo Shinichi." She indicated the older boy with a raised fork pointed his direction, who responded with a half-serious glare that Kaito could immediately tell didn't contain any actual anger towards the girl.

"Mystery otaku, eh? Just because I read Sherlock Holmes now and again?" Shinichi got up with a huff full of stage exaggeration after the question and picked up his plate before going into the kitchen to grab some seconds.

"By 'now and again' he really means 'nearly every day'," she whispered in a lighthearted, conspiratorial tone to Kaito when Shinichi had fully exited the room. "Look at what a sorry state that poor, overused paperback of his is in!" Kaito had to admit that it looked very well-read and frequently thumbed through; his Leblanc novels were in nearly the same condition. "So where's your mom's number in here?" she suddenly asked, taking Kaito's cell phone off of the table and beginning to try and thumb through his phone. _So glad I have that password on my phone set up thanks to Aoko being nosy..._

"Oh, you have a password on it," she commented with a frown before handing it back to Kaito. "Well, go ahead and unlock it so we can call your mom or dad and give them directions to come pick you up."

_Ugh...think fast, Kaito...how the hell to get out of this one...I don't want Mom to find out I'm shrunk through a phone call from a total stranger!_

"Ran, c'mere for a minute," stated Shinichi seriously from the kitchen. Surprised by his tone, Ran quickly got to her feet and entered the kitchen, Kaito immediately deciding to eavesdrop from the other side of the entryway.

"What is it, Shinichi? You sounded so serious..."

"Isn't it obvious that his parents haven't been around for a while and he's trying to scrape by on his own? It would do no good calling them because they probably won't show up even if we do call," replied Shinichi in that same firm tone, but so quietly that Kaito wouldn't have been able to hear the conversation had he not set himself up to do so. "He was wearing clothes that were way too big for him- most likely his father's- and he was probably wearing them because all of his own clothes were dirty," Shinichi continued while Ran's hands went to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. "He also wasn't in too good of health when we found him; what parent or caretaker would let a kid out the door with a fever spiking that high to begin with, much less in clothes that large and ridiculous? His parents are probably just gone somewhere and sending him money every week in lieu of actually having someone check in on him- I found a small wad of yen in the jeans pocket."

"But then...what can we do?" replied Ran quietly. "We can't just let him go back out to wherever he's staying-"

"Of course not." Shinichi placed his plate down once he finished spooning the curry over his rice and turned to look out at the living room where Kaito was supposed to be sitting. "Mom and Dad send way more money to me every week then I ever wind up using, and as you know, this house is huge and has like three or four guest bedrooms- I've lost count." He shrugged before picking up his plate and walking towards the living room, prompting Kaito to make a mad dash back to the seat he was supposed to have never vacated in the first place.

"Did you want any more, Kihagi?" asked Ran sweetly as she and Shinichi approached the table.

"OK," Kaito replied cheerfully, holding his plate up and offering a wide grin. _Should probably make it seem like I haven't had a good meal in a while thanks to my absentee parents, _he had quickly realized after she'd asked the question. There was part of him that felt a little guilty about so quickly, gleefully deciding to perpetuate the sad scenario Shinichi had come up with, but there was another part of him that was relieved about not having to come up with excuse after excuse to avoid having the pair contact his mom. _I'll contact her once I've settled in and figured a few things out... _Ran smiled brightly at him before nodding, taking the plate and heading back into the kitchen.

"So what were you doing at Tropical Land today? When we found you, you had a bad fever- why weren't you in bed?"

"Well, the money from Mom and Dad came today in the mail, and I get to go once a month with it- they told me so. I didn't want to miss it even if I was sick." He shifted in his seat a bit and looked up at Shinichi uncomfortably. "I probably should have stayed in bed, though- I started feeling very sick after a little bit of walking around in there." _Thank you, Poker Face..._

"Well, maybe it would be good if we let you get a good night's rest before you back home, eh?" inquired Shinichi as Ran returned with Kaito's second plate. "You can stay the night in that same room that you woke up in earlier, if you'd like."

"OK, if you don't mind," replied Kaito while eagerly stuffing his face with the delicious food. _At least I don't have to fake liking this food- Mmm, I could get very used to this..._

"It's no big deal- My parents are gone on an extended round of vacations, so I'm here by myself," commented Shinichi while waving his hand. "Kinda lonely being by yourself," he added with a pointed glance at the small boy seated across from him, asking the question about whether his parents were gone long-term without really asking.

"Mmm, sometimes, but I don't feel like I'm alone when I get to go to Tropical Land because there are so many people there all the time." _Geh, so cheesy..._

"Well, we should probably also get you some new clothes tomorrow too- wandering around in those huge clothes is no good," added Ran brightly as Kaito finished off his seconds. "We can go to your house and pick up some of your clothes and do laundry, too. After school, of course."

"Speaking of school, have you been going to school since your parents have been gone, Kihagi?" asked Shinichi. "If not, we should probably get you enrolled in the elementary that's close by to here."

_Elementary school was bad enough the FIRST time I had to endure it... _"No, because I couldn't ever figure out which buses to catch." _Well, OK, it's because I ran like hell and HID from the buses so I wouldn't have to go, at least back when I was really six..._

"That settles it, then. You can spend the night in that room, then we'll pick you up some clothes and get you registered for school tomorrow, if they'll allow it- hopefully this time of the month isn't too close to the cutoff date." Shinichi stood up and started guiding Kaito towards the bedroom. "Go on and get plenty of rest- you were really sick just this afternoon, so you should sleep as much as possible." This was said in a flat tone that brooked no argument.

Kaito decided not to argue with the guy, mostly because the weight of the warm food in his stomach was inducing a happy, sleepy state that he wanted to take advantage of. Since he had nothing else to wear at the moment but the small robe, he slid into bed and then grabbed the cellphone out of his pocket. He couldn't call her- there was no way she'd be able to recognize his voice now, after all- but he decided to text Aoko to let her know that he was alright. _Well, 'alright' is a relative term right now, but at least I'm still alive..._

**Aoko, sorry that we had to break off Tropical Land early. You know how I get when I'm on the scent of a case.**

He hurriedly sent this off with a deep sigh, hoping she wouldn't be too mad at him.

**You idiot. I told you to quit apologizing for that a long time ago. See you in class. **came her reply a few minutes later.

"Ugh...that's right...I have to figure that one out, too," he mumbled to himself before his eyelids suddenly grew heavy and he slid off into dreamland in his strange new body for the first time.


	4. Chapter 4

Here we go! Please review- I'd really like to know what people think!

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_I have to remember to get out of bed a little more slowly until I finish getting used to this stupid tiny body, _Kaito thought darkly after he had gone to hop out of bed upon waking up like always and landing square on his bum instead due to expecting legs that weren't nearly as long as they once were to catch him. With a disgusted sigh, he got up off of the floor and dusted himself off before panicking for a quick moment after looking around. This was when he remembered that he'd managed to stumble into staying at a guest room at Kudo Shinichi's house after the boy and Mouri Ran had found him passed out at Tropical Land- a guest room that he hoped he could wrangle into becoming a permanent _residence_ until he figured out what the hell had been done to him and the remedy for the same.

"Hey, was that you that was thudding around a minute ago, Kihagi?" called Shinichi from the other side of the door after knocking on it. "I have some of my old clothes from when I was a kid that you can borrow just for today till we pick up your laundry and do some shopping."

"Okay, Shinichi-niisan." _Of course, I need to figure out how the whole 'getting laundry from my house' thing is going to work since I have no idea if Mom's even kept my clothes from when I was a kid at all...and Mom may also very well be home when we show up, which will blow my very wonderful cover story wide open. _He made a face as Shinichi showed him a small blue jacket, red bow tie and white shirt with tan short pants completing the outfit, unable to hold his disgust in check. _Ugh. So completely dorky looking, but I guess I have no choice in the matter. Beggars can't be choosers, after all, and it's not like I have anything else that will fit me besides this robe..._

"Hey, blame my mom's fashion sense, not mine. I didn't pick this outfit out," Shinichi commented with a laugh after he'd noticed the face that Kaito was making at the suit. "Go ahead and get cleaned up, then come and eat breakfast- I can at least do eggs alright. Then you're probably going to have to stay with my neighbor Agasa-hakase while I'm in school, at least for today until we figure out whether or not you can get enrolled at the elementary school still." With that, Shinichi exited the room and Kaito sighed miserably before going into the shower and getting dressed afterwards. _When people talk about wanting to relive their childhoods, I highly doubt that they mean it quite this literally..._

"There you are. Hurry and eat before it gets cold." Shinichi indicated the seat Kaito had eaten dinner in that had a plate sitting in front of it, and Kaito hopped up and ate some at least very tolerable scrambled eggs, though they could have used a little more salt in his opinion. Once he'd finished, Kaito cleared his plate and tipped it over into the sink in the kitchen, having to stand on his tiptoes to accomplish this feat.

"Alright. I'm going to drop you off at Agasa-hakase's, Kihagi, since I have to go to school. He's our neighbor, Hiroshi Agasa, and we've known him a long time, so be on your best behavior. I'll come pick you up from his house on my way home," Shinichi explained as he headed towards the door after indicating that Kaito should follow him. _Agasa-hakase? Must be a professor or scientist of some sort..._

"Aah, this must be Ookami Kihagi!" cried a rather frightening, plump, partially bald man in a lab coat and glasses a few minutes later as Shinichi and Kaito walked into the house next door; Kaito guessed that (unfortunately) this man was the 'Agasa-hakase' who Shinichi had referred to. "Good to see that you're feeling better- you were burning up when Shinichi and Ran brought you home from Tropical Land the other day." Kaito looked up at Shinichi and leveled a questioning glare at him. _I'm going to be cooped up all day with this crazy-looking old coot? Thank you SO much, Kudo. _

"Sorry, this was the best I could do on such short notice," replied Shinichi as he looked back down at Kaito with a 'What could I do?' shrug, almost as if he were reading the other boy's thoughts. "I'll be back after school," he continued with a wave to Kaito as he backed out of the door and began walking down the street.

"So, Kihagi, what games do you enjoy playing?" inquired Agasa after Shinichi had completely disappeared down the street.

_Practicing my magic tricks, _he wanted to cry out, but he didn't want anyone to know that it was him- and the magic would be a near dead giveaway, or so he felt. "Umm, I like Clue!"

"Oh, ho- So did Shinichi when he was your age, although he always seemed to figure it out before we could even get too far into the game," replied Agasa in a carefree tone. "I'll go see if I can find that- be right back. The television is in the other room if you want to keep yourself occupied," Agasa finished as he began walking into another room while pointing to his right. Deciding that at even television was better than going stir crazy because he couldn't practice his tricks (what a waste of a perfectly good day off!,) Kaito walked into the room Agasa had indicated and sat down in front of the TV. _Hmm...The news. I can at least watch this right now without blowing my cover since the old man's out of the room..._

"We now go live to the scene of our top story, where the Black Fox pulled off yet another daring robbery yesterday. A crime scene which has now had a murder added to its résumé," the announcer droned as their main camera suddenly changed scenes to the art museum that the Black Fox had hit yesterday. _Was I really just there trying to figure that robbery of Fox's out yesterday? It feels like that was a hundred years ago..._

"Thank you. Police have indeed confirmed that the body that was discovered here this morning does seem to be the Black Fox, though police are investigating further into-"

Kaito's complete, rapt attention to the news report- Black Fox dead at his own crime scene?!- was interrupted by that news report suddenly turning into Yamen Kaiba. He blinked twice before looking to the TV's left and seeing that Agasa had turned the channel.

"Sorry, you must have been bored out of your mind watching that news, eh? I forgot to mention that this TV doesn't have a remote, so I figured I would come in and change it for you."

_I WAS WATCHING THAT! _"Th-thanks, I really appreciate it," Kaito finally managed to get out through an overly bright, very faked smile and completely gritted teeth, hoping the professor wouldn't pick up on his incredible frustration and anger. _Damn it! Is it really Fox dead in there? Did he actually return to the scene of his own crime and not only get caught in the act, but killed as well? But by who? Yet that just doesn't seem like him, it doesn't match his M.O at all...I didn't get to see nearly enough of that report before that idiot changed the channel on me...ARGH! _However, Kaito didn't want to raise any suspicions by demanding that the channel be changed back, so he sat halfheartedly watching some old Yamen Kaiba until Agasa returned, an old Clue board game in his hand, his mind furiously churning over what precious little that he'd gotten to see.

"I finally found it. Sorry it took me so long, I'm afraid it got buried under all kinds of other junk," explained Agasa as he laid the game out on the ground. "Anyhow, it's been so long since I've played this that I'm afraid I've forgotten how to set it up..."

"That's OK," Kaito replied, quickly hatching a plan that was entirely reliant on the generally automatic human interest in the macabre that he could only hope would work. He got up and walked over to the TV once a commercial came on, acting like he was trying to turn the channel to find more cartoons but turning it back to the news channel instead.

"...police are not sure if the body is the Black Fox yet, and they haven't released the man's identity yet, having found a wallet with identification that they need to verify is the actual ID and name belonging to the victim, who was shot to death..."

"What the- the Black Fox dead at his own crime scene?!" demanded Agasa as he spun towards the TV, the game of Clue apparently completely forgotten after hearing the report- exactly and precisely what Kaito had hoped would occur. _Score one for Human Psychology 101_, he thought with an inward broad, triumphant grin as he, too, refocused his attention to the television.

"There's no way that's right!" snapped Agasa suddenly, causing the tiny tantei to look over at the professor in surprise. It didn't seem like Agasa was saying that in disbelief, it sounded like he had _known _something about this. Narrowing his eyes momentarily before remembering that he was supposed to be an innocent, unobservational child and not a highly trained detective, Kaito quickly turned back to the TV and pretended to be absorbed in it. "How peculiar. It didn't seem like the Black Fox would ever be careless enough to get caught- I wonder if that's even really him."

_My thoughts exactly. This smells to high heaven... _"Maybe there was someone who was smarter than the Black Fox! But why would they kill him, Agasa-hakase?"

"Mmm, I'm afraid that that would be up to the police to figure out, and I'm sure they're working on it," replied the older man with a smile as he returned his attention to the board game in front of him. "Well, let's play detective, what do you say? I found the instructions here..."

The two passed the day playing Clue and other games, Kaito being very careful to deliberately lose every so often and write messily. _Having to act six years old is a huge pain...I really really hope that this doesn't last too long..._

"Oh, your cell phone is ringing!" cried Agasa. Kaito panicked as he realized that it was probably Aoko calling, planning to demand to know why he had missed his classes. _Crap, I have a six year old voice! But I have to answer that phone...think quick, Kaito..._

"Hello?" he squeaked as he answered, trying causing his voice to crack and happy when he succeeded.

"Oh, well, that answers my question about where you were today," replied Aoko. "You sound sick as a dog- I picked up your homework for you, I'll drop it off at your mom's work on the way home."

"Much appreciated," he squeaked again. "Yeah I really don't feel so good."

"Well, get a lot of rest. The police need their meitantei back in action as soon as possible," Aoko chuckled.

"I'll try," he wheezed with a hacking laugh. "Don't worry, I'll try to be back as soon as possible."


	5. Chapter 5

Here we go! Please review- they spur me on! 

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"So did you hear the big news that the Black Fox might have been killed today, Kihagi?" inquired Shinichi after he'd picked up Kaito from Agasa's house not too long after Kaito and Agasa had finished watching the most current report from the scene and they began walking down the street. "It was all over the news today; everyone was talking about it in between classes. Pretty scary, eh?"

_Not scary...there's something that simply doesn't sit right with me about that whole mess and the killing today. It just flat out doesn't seem like it would be in the Black Fox's nature to be that completely careless. His planning and execution of the thefts and returning of the objects are both so meticulous... _"A little," Kaito lied as enthusiastically as possible while looking up and smiling at his near-twin after realizing that the other was waiting for a reply with an expectant grin. "But he's a criminal, right? So another bad criminal killed him." _Geh, I am absolutely going to go certifiably nuts if I have to keep up this little kid act for too long..._

"Oh, yeah. We need to head this way today," said Shinichi brightly as he pointed to the left instead of the path right back down the street before turning and heading the way that he'd indicated. "Ran's old man Mouri Kogoro agreed to pick us up and drop us off so we could do some shopping for you since I said I would pay for the car and gas- we're meeting them at the park that's a few blocks down." Shinichi let out a deep sigh and mumbled "I just hope he's sober enough to drive right now, but Ran would have probably called me to arrange a cab if he wasn't" under his breath just loud enough that Kaito could hear it before a clunky white banged-up car came swerving up to the curb and screeched to a halt alongside the pair, making them both jump. Kaito 's initial thought was the perhaps the driver was a bit on the tipsy side after all, but the next few moments revealed that anger, not alcohol, had been the source of the erratic driving.

"I BLAME IT ALL ON THAT DAMN IDIOT SO-CALLED 'MEITANTEI' KUROBA KAITO!" were the first words that issued from the car - rather loudly- as the driver's side window rolled down and the distinct odor of cigarettes emerged from the car like a wave and rolled over the pair standing on the sidewalk, causing both boys to cough a bit. The speaker (OK, yeller) had been a man; Kaito guessed that he must be the father, Mouri Kogoro, that Shinichi had just been speaking of.

_Eh? What the hell did I ever do to you, pal? _Kaito reflexively narrowed his eyes in anger after realizing just what had been bellowed before remembering that he was Ookami Kihagi for the time being and quickly slipping his innocent child's mask back into place, thankful that Shinichi had been too busy rolling his eyes at the statement (or perhaps the smoke, or maybe both of the above) to notice the glare.

"Hi, Shinichi," came Ran's apologetic-sounding voice from the backseat, the girl having to raise her voice a bit to be heard over the clunky engine. "Sorry about this, Dad heard that the police were requesting that meitantei Kuroba's help on the radio and it kinda-"

"Aww, nuts, not this again" grumbled Shinichi as he opened the door closest to the sidewalk and helped Kaito get in (much to Kaito's embarrassment- He was _17_ and he had to be helped into a car?!) before sliding into the backseat himself and buckling in following Kaito settling down and strapping himself in the small middle seat between the boy and Ran. "Please don't tell me you're starting on or in the middle of another one of _those _rants about how Kuroba 'stole your clientele' from you and is ruining your way of life, ojisan..." stated Shinichi mildly as they peeled away from the curb, tone world-weary.

_Stole his clientele? Huh? Is this guy a-_

"HE DID!" Kogoro turned around and bellowed at Shinichi before turning his attention back to the road in front of them and lighting another cigarette with his free hand in between shifts, adding the butt end of the previous one to a large stack already in the ashtray. _I've heard of heavy smokers, but that's a little much, _thought Kaito after seeing how full the tray was with crushed butts before Kogoro resumed his loud grumbling. "That damn guy! I haven't seen hide or hair of a paying client in six months thanks to him and his 'brilliant record of investigation'! And being close to that Nakamori guy's daughter probably helps him buy influence, too! And access to crime scenes so he can pad his stupid record!" he continued to grouse.

"So," replied Shinichi in a tone full of angry exasperation while wearing a dark glower, "the fact that you haven't had a client in six months has _absolutely nothing _to do with the fact that you-"

"Shinichi, please don't. Not right now, he's in a _bad_ mood, a really bad one thanks to the stuff about Kuroba-kun on the radio," implored Ran in a hushed whisper while reaching behind Kaito's back to give the other boy's hand a quick squeeze, accompanying the gesture with a pleading look. Shinichi looked over at Ran and the scowl instantly dissipated as he gave her a small nod and tight smile before he looked out the window, replacing the anger with weariness and a dejected sigh as Ran slowly slid her hand off his and returned it to her own lap with a grateful expression on her face.

"He'll never get it. He drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, looks like something the cat drug in most all the time and also has the deductive skills of a pet rock ninety-five percent of the time thanks to the first problem," muttered Shinichi so quietly that it was almost to himself as he continued staring out the window at the brilliant summer day on the other side. "And he wonders why he doesn't have clients? What client would willingly visit an over-boozing, heavy smoking, horrid-looking tantei like him?"

_This angry, scruffy-looking guy with no clients is a tantei?!? You are _kidding_ me, right? _

"Wow, Mouri-ojisan, you're a tantei? That must be a really cool job!" _...Yep, gonna go nuts._

"He is one when he can get cases, yep," explained Ran with a smile while patting the top of Kaito's head. "In fact, he used to be a police detective like you see on T.V. shows, but he decided that he wanted to run his own business and set his own hours, so now he has a detective agency in town."

_Well, that sort of business would probably come in very handy for my efforts in trying to track down those jerks that shrunk me with that pill, if he actually ever got any clientele that I could use to help actually get leads on those men in black. But I'll bet that he didn't 'decide' anything, he was probably tossed out on his ear for drinking so much and had no choice but to open a private agency, _mused Kaito as he glanced over at Shinichi and saw that the other boy was focusing out the window very intently- _too_ intently. _He looks like he really, really wants to say something but is keeping quiet for the Mouri Ran's sake..._

"...and in other news, the police are now officially offering a 50,000-yen reward for any information about the identity of the man who was killed early this morning at the Black Fox's latest crime scene," came the radio announcer's static-laden voice. "Police are confirming that they do NOT believe the body discovered at the scene is the infamous robber who has a penchant for returning his loot, but they have also not found any identification on the body which is what delayed the confirmation process."

"That Black Fox person's so bizarre," stated Kogoro with a yawn as he turned down the radio. "Why the hell would you go to all that trouble to steal stuff only to return it? And in gift wrap, right on the police headquarters' doorstep to boot...It's like Black Fox _wants_ to piss the cops off or something."

"Well, Sonoko and I have our own theory on that," grinned Ran, snapped out of her sullen mood. "We think that the Black Fox returns the items to the police headquarters because he or she _knows_ that it will get back to the owner or owners safely that way, and it also spares them the hassle of having to break in a second time to return whatever it is that was stolen." She leaned back in her seat and grinned. "The Black Fox has quite a fan club amongst the girls at our school- they're convinced it's some handsome young guy."

_Why didn't I ever think of the returning of the stolen items from that angle before, in all this time I've been chasing him? _Kaito sat up a bit straighter in his seat and fixed a serious, contemplative gaze on the ground in front of him, a habit of his when he was trying to deeply reflect on a case that he had. He tuned out the rest of the world and focused solely on getting to the truth.

_I always thought that Black Fox was doing it just to mock the police and the force's inability to even catch a glimpse of them, but maybe they really are trying to make sure that the items get returned safely...just maybe...especially since the items have always been the genuine thing every single time- _Kogoro's voice snapped him out of his trance, and he was actually grateful for it. _Ugh...have to be careful with that...can't look too serious with this kid face or people will start to suspect something's up... _He relaxed a bit and felt much better after he saw that neither Ran nor Shinichi had been looking down at him during his zone-out.

"Well that's because the girls at your school are idiots," snapped Kogoro in reply to Ran with a glance into the rearview. "The Black Fox has never even been caught on camera to date, so they shouldn't automatically assume it's some young guy and get all mushy and lovey-dovey. The Black Fox could be a man, woman, teenager, child, trained animal or alien for all the police know right now." He hmmphed before lighting yet another cigarette.

"Weirdo any way you look at it and whoever they are, though. A thief that goes through all that hassle and bother just to return the very thing they spent all that time plotting to steal? Beats the hell out of me." Kogoro perked up suddenly as the mall came into view. "There it is. I'll pick you up in three hours, I'm heading to the pachinko parlor down the street," he stated flatly before he whipped up to the curb and allowed his passengers to disembark. He then took off again with the peeling of rubber and screeching of tires.

"If only he hadn't heard that stupid story about the police consulting Kuroba-tantei," sighed Ran as she shook her head. "Those stories always put him in a positively foul mood-"

Just then, a loud scream issued from the parking lot far off to their right, followed by a woman shouting "OH MY GOD HE'S DEAD!"


	6. Chapter 6

Here we go! Please review!

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"Move along, kid, move along. Quit poking around in here and messing up my crime scene already, would ya?" grumbled the rotund, hatted keibu in charge of the scene after he had tried to forcibly remove Kaito from the taped-off area surrounding the car that had very been the scene of a murder whose name Kaito had managed to catch as Megure. Kaito, Ran and Shinichi had followed the woman's screams that they'd heard to the scene right after the police had gotten there and begun their investigation. Kaito had, of course, begun poking around the scene immediately by sheer instinct honed through doing the same thing so many times before until he found himself suddenly picked up off the ground by someone that wasn't the keibu as those same harsh words were issued a few minutes later.

That tan four-door car currently contained shopping bags from different clothing stores in the nearby mall in its now-open trunk, a small yapping dog that was in the backseat still barking its head off with an officer trying to catch it so it wouldn't contaminate the crime scene within the vehicle any further than it already probably had, and one very dead older gentleman slumped in the front seat with his head leaning against the top of the wheel, his blue necktie pulled tight enough around his throat to cause strangulation- the most likely cause of death, though cause of death was nowhere close to being established as of yet and the police were being careful about not jumping to conclusions.

"Let me go!" Kaito demanded petulantly for the third or fourth time since his unexpected scoop-up as one of the other police currently on the scene, a rather pretty woman with short, black hair, held him up and asked "Who does this child belong to?" in a no-nonsense tone, raising her voice above the murmurs and general noise of the onlookers. Unfortunately, Kaito didn't know or recognize any of the members of this particular homicide unit, and there was no way that he could call Nakamori-keibu and get him to intercede on his behalf when he had decided it was best if Kuroba Kaito was dead for the foreseeable future- or rather, working on a difficult case somewhere far away from Beika, as he planned to tell Aoko in three or four days after he'd had enough time to 'recover' from his 'cold' and make the trip. _Not to mention that no one would believe that this six-year-old body really houses a seventeen-year-old tantei even if I _did_ call Nakamori-keibu and tried to explain that I'd been shrunk by guys in black outfits..._

"There you are, Kihagi! He's with us, sorry," called Shinichi nervously as he and Ran quickly separated themselves from the throng of onlookers and stepped up to the woman. "We've been looking for you all over," he commented with a non-serious scowl as he took Kaito from the woman before placing him down on the ground. "Sorry, Satou-keiji," Shinichi added to the policewoman with a polite bow as Kaito tucked himself behind the other boy's leg while resisting the urge to level a glare at the officer. "I'm afraid he's too curious for his own good sometimes, sorry about any trouble he's caused you guys..."

"Well, keep him under control- he kept trying to poke around the crime scene, and that's no place for children," Satou chided with a shake of her head, but not without a smile accompanying the gesture before turning back around and heading back to the witnesses to do her job of trying to place the homicide-shaped puzzle together.

"Shinichi, how did you know that keiji's name?" inquired Ran in an amazed, slightly suspicious tone of the other boy as they watched Satou-keiji's retreating back. _Glad she asked, I have the same question, _thought Kaito as he stared intently up at Shinichi.

"Oh, I've met her a time or two before. In fact, she was the one that talked with me that night that I was at the scene of that Black Fox robbery six months ago- remember I was in the restaurant across the way when Fox stole that gold statue or whatever it was?" explained Shinichi with a wave of his hand and a shrug. "They rounded up everyone in a three-block area that night and questioned them- looking for Fox, I suppose. But Fox got away again, like always."

_Dammit, I know I could solve this thing if they would let me! There's only two suspects present, the guy's wife and his company's vice-president. If only I could poke around that scene some more I know I'd find something..._

"Are you mad about her moving you out of there, Kihagi?" inquired Ran as she looked down and saw the serious, angry look on the boy's face.

"Oh, um, kind of, but I guess I shouldn't go past the tape, I didn't realize it was there," Kaito replied quickly after realizing that Ran had been talking to him and then lying through his teeth. _Whew...I have got to remember that I'm a kid named Kihagi and start replying to that name...and also remember that I won't be able to just go in and work crime scenes like I used to before...stupid small body!_

"Shinichi, you should try and help them," Ran grinned in a joshing tone as she gently poked the boy in his shoulder. "You're always reading those mystery books, I bet you could help them figure it out in no time."

"I'm no tantei just because I like mystery novels," Shinichi replied firmly while shaking his head with an equal amount of conviction. "Reading books is no substitute for actual investigative experience-"

"Wow, look at this!" Kaito exclaimed as he pointed at two pieces of dog kibble sitting on the ground by the trio, suddenly hitting on an idea born out of sheer desperation and investigative fever, his blood fairly singing from being in the presence of a dead body (as macabre as that sounded, and he knew that it did.) _If I can't work the scenes, I can help the cops work them instead...or Kudo in this case, I guess. The problem is going to be convincing anyone to listen to a kid my apparent age, and also to not be too obvious when I'm pointing things out... _

"Hey, is that dog kibble?" muttered Shinichi as he went and knelt by Kaito. _Yes, it is! _Kaito screamed mentally. _And what does that tell you...? C'mon, you seem fairly intelligent, figure it out and tell the police! Help me point them to the killer!_

"But what would dog kibble be doing out here on the ground? This looks fairly new, and the only dog around here is the little one in the car." Shinichi stood up and stretched before looking over in towards the direction of the police and adding "Seems kind of strange that it would be so far over here" in their direction using a tone loud enough that Satou turned her head to the phrase before coming over to take a look.

"Dog food over here?" she muttered to herself as she bent down slightly to examine the two small pieces of food after Shinichi had pointed to them. "I wonder if it got caught in someone's shoe...but it's not crushed, so it can't be that..."

"Or someone lured the dog out of the car to kill the victim while the victim was taking a nap waiting for his wife to get finished shopping," stated an unfamiliar male voice as one of the detectives walked over beside Satou. "But it's such a little dog, that doesn't make sense. It's not like he can hurt anyone," the male keiji continued as the small dog licked his face, tail wagging furiously. "Besides, he's very, very friendly."

_Unless someone has a dog phobia- or another equally good reason for getting rid of the dog by taking it out of the car_, thought Kaito with narrowed eyes as he began a more surreptitious attempt at investigating the scene of the crime that was rather quickly foiled by Shinichi grabbing his hand and saying "Have you forgotten the whole reason we came here in the first place? We need to get you clothes. Let's leave this to the police."

_No! We need to figure out why the dog was taken out of the car before he was killed and how it got back into the sealed car! I am NOT just walking away from this without solving this!_

"But I want to help take care of the doggy, Shinichi-niisan! He must have been so lonely after whoever fed him outside of the car left him all alone like that with that dead ojisan!" _Alright. If one of you somewhere in this group doesn't figure out that hint and run with it, I give up altogether on this whole 'guiding' thing, _Kaito thought darkly as he tugged feebly towards the crime scene and away from Shinichi as Shinichi and Ran began walking towards the mall, Kaito finding himself unable to resist the strong pull of the much larger boy. _Hate this body, hate this body, hate this body..._

"Wait a minute- the boy raises an interesting point," muttered the male officer as the dog happily continued to lick his face.

"What do you mean, Takagi-kun?"

"Well, think about it. When we arrived on the scene, the dog was in the sealed-up car, right, Satou-san?" he asked. "But we found some food here that wasn't crushed or anything that seems to strongly indicate that the dog was fed outside of the car. So why was the dog removed from the car, fed, then placed back into the car after the owner was killed? It's not like the dog could have really hurt someone, he's a tiny little thing."

"Maybe because whoever killed that ojisan doesn't like dogs very much?" _I so wish I could just flat out say what's going on and be done...I hope they see the hint within that hint..._

"Or they were allergic." Takagi and Satou both gave pointed glances over to his vice president, who was currently in the midst of yet another round of interrogation. "Interestingly enough, his vice-president is _highly _allergic to dogs."

_Ugh...you're doing exactly what the killer wants you guys to do! You're thinking the wrong way! You're falling right into-_

"C'mon, Kihagi," said Ran happily as she hefted him onto her shoulders, shoving his mind out of its desperate 'formulate-any-sort-of-plan-to-stop-this' mode. "It's time that we went and got you those clothes and stopped bothering those officers, after all."

_CRAP! If I don't get down from here and straighten them out an innocent person will probably go to jail! They took my hint the wrong way and are barking up the totally wrong tree!_

"Aww, c'mon, Ran, don't baby him by carrying him like that," snickered Shinichi as he lifted Kaito off Ran's shoulders and put him back down onto the ground between the two of them. It was at almost that exact moment that Kaito saw his father's old confidante and stage assistant, Konsuke Jii, out of the corner of his eye as Jii entered one of the stores just outside of the main mall. _JII! What a lucky break. I can get him to help me if I can convince him it's me..._

"Can we go in there first?" he asked in the sweetest tone that he could muster as he pointed into the shop that Jii had just entered.


	7. Chapter 7

Please review!

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"OK, now where is he?"

Kaito blinked up at Jii in a state of total confusion, wondering what on Earth Jii meant by that question. After Kaito had worked so hard for the last several minutes to get both himself and Jii into a corner of the store where it was quiet enough and free enough of wandering shoppers that Kaito could safely, quietly reveal his true identity while Shinichi and Ran were busy picking out little boy's clothes for him in another section of the store, Jii had reacted to Kaito's rushed, quickly whispered "Jii-chan! It's me, Kaito, and I need your help right now!" by merely looking down at Kaito before starting to look up and around the entire store, shading his eyes and scouring every inch of the store with a slow, deliberate stare.

"What do you mean 'where is he'? Who the heck are you even talking about?" Kaito hissed furiously under his breath to the old performer, beginning to become somewhat frantic as he realized that the task of convincing Jii of his true identity had to be done- and _very_ quickly, before Shinichi and Ran realized that he'd slipped away from their sides and began their search for the AWOL Ookami Kihagi. _I have about two minutes to convince him, probably less, before they'll start looking..._

"I mean that messy-haired magician prankster who put you up to this trick, young one," replied Jii with a wink as he looked down at Kaito with humor-filled eyes. "That guy'll do most anything for a laugh, you'd best not follow Kuroba Kaito's example or you'll get into a lot of trouble as you get older, take my word for it," he added with a chuckle as he patted the top of Kaito's head a couple of times, a gesture which infuriated and panicked Kaito in equal measures. _Don't follow my example, huh? And patting my head like I'm a kid? Crap, he _still _hasn't realized I'm me yet! I'm running out of time!_ "Although I do admit you bear an absolutely amazing resemblance to Kaito from back when he was your age, it's positively uncanny..." Jii continued as he placed a hand under his chin and studied Kaito.

_That would be because I AM Kaito, genius! Are you paying _any_ attention at all? _"Jii-chan, I AM him! It's _me_, dammit! Kuroba Kaito!" Kaito growled in as low and threatening a voice as his six-year-old vocal cords would allow, hoping that the harsh curse word emerging from his young-appearing mouth would cause Jii to pay more rapt, focused attention to what Kaito was so desperately trying to communicate before his time alone with Jii -his last hope since Shinichi and Ran hadn't stayed at the crime scene- ran out. Jii actually took a step backwards and stared openly at him with a horror-filled expression for a few seconds before squatting down and looking, really _looking _at Kaito for the first time, adjusting his glasses twice while his face filled with shock, more horror, then finally total puzzlement as he continued to study the meitantei's shrunken face and highly intelligent, mature indigo eyes that were definitely not those of a six-year old for a few more intent moments.

"K-Kaito?" Jii finally muttered quietly as he slowly stood back up in a daze and continued to stare down at Kaito, the silence brought on by his stunned shock broken after Jii seemed to have finished processing what was going on. Jii had apparently at _last_ realized (much to Kaito's great relief) that the six-year-old in front of him really was Kuroba Toichi's son who had somehow mysteriously had the clock turned _way_ back- well, physically at least. "But-but w-what on Earth happened to-?"

"No time to explain now," Kaito snapped shortly as he looked up and firmly shook his head, cutting off the inquiry from Jii in midsentence. _I hope he can get over the shock quickly and focus on what I need him to do..._ "I need your help outside at a murder scene, _right now. _The cops out there are about to arrest the wrong person thanks to some planted evidence left by the real killer and they won't let me poke around or listen to me at all because they think I'm _really_ a kid," Kaito continued explaining in a quiet voice as he motioned for Jii to follow him.

"Oh, Kihagi! Thank goodness! _There_ you are, you naughty boy! Don't wander off like that ever again without telling Shinichi or I first!" came Ran's gently scolding voice from their right as she and Shinichi approached Jii and Kaito, Ran's crossed arms stuffed with small shirts and jackets and Shinichi's right arm covered with pairs of child's pants and a basket filled with small socks and boy's underwear tucked under that same arm. "I'm so very sorry if he's caused you any problems," Ran said with a deep bow as she turned to Jii. "Come on, Kihagi, it's time to try on some outfits," she added cheerfully as she shifted her load to one hand, grabbed Kaito's hand and began dragging him toward the fitting rooms.

_I don't have time for that right now! I have to prevent an innocent person from going to jail for _murder_! Let me go, let me go! _Kaito began dragging his feet furiously as he was pulled away from the store's entrance, ready to pitch a child-style fit complete with rolling on the floor if need be to escape Ran's clutches.

"Oh, he's no bother," grinned Jii nervously as he picked Kaito up, placed him back down in front of him and began to walk him towards the front of the store. "He was just going to help me bring the bags to my car, isn't that right?" _Sorry, I know it's not much but it's what I could think of off the top of my head, _Jii's apologetic glance downward seemed to imply.

"Oh, well in that case we should probably let him do his good deed first before he tries on this stuff," said Shinichi to Ran with a wink that caused the girl's cheeks to immediately color a tiny bit while he handed her the jackets and basket. "But maybe I can help too?" he added before walking out the front door with Jii and Kaito. "Try and sort some of that stuff out Ran, we'll be back soon," called Shinichi as the trio left the store.

_OK...Now I've gotten out of that, at least for now, but I still need to figure out how I'm going to give Jii instructions on what to do with Kudo hovering so close by. _Kaito was certain that Shinichi was merely following them due to being overly wary about such a young child suddenly going off with a total stranger. This was because, of course, that Shinichi had no way of knowing that the six-year old 'Ookami Kihagi' had really known Konsuke Jii for the greater part of his _seventeen_-year old life- and it would _stay_ that way if Kaito had his way about it at all. _On the other hand, if I'm going to get anywhere as a detective and start investigating those guys in black now that I'm shrunk, I suppose I should turn Kudo into a detective...Either him or Mouri Kogoro, and I have the feeling that I'll have much better luck with Kudo. But for now I need Jii-chan to follow my lead, if I can get Kudo distracted long enough to explain my plan to Jii-chan..._

"Shinichi-niisan, could I have a pop from that vending machine over there?" asked Kaito sweetly, holding out a bill to pay for the soda as he looked up at the boy with pleading eyes. "I won't move from this spot, I promise, and it's close."

"I suppose. I'll be right back," Shinichi replied, taking the bill from Kaito and walking over to the machine while glancing back over his shoulder the entire time to make sure the other two weren't moving.

"Alright. I have to be quick. The killer is the wife, who framed the vice president. I haven't figured out the motive yet," Kaito said as quietly and quickly as possible while Shinichi was out of earshot. "The dog was taken out and put back in specifically to frame the vice-president because of his allergy. Be sure to reference the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, it'll lead them down the right path I hope- Eh, dang it, here comes Kudo now, the rest is up to you," he finished in a rush as Shinichi approached with a pop in hand.

"I hope you like orange soda," he grinned as he opened the can and handed it to Kaito. "I wonder if they've arrested the murderer yet," Shinichi added as he glanced over at the crime scene. "Pretty strange stuff."

"A murder? Oh, I'd wondered about all the commotion," replied Jii as he took advantage of the opportunity to go wander over to the crime scene while Shinichi followed, much to the barely repressed delight of Kaito. _Good- He can think fairly fast on his feet. Now to see if I can poke around some more and figure out a motive..._

"What did you mean about the dog in the night-time?" whispered Jii from above Kaito a few moments later. "I don't know what you're-"

"Oh, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time?" asked Shinichi happily as he walked over to the pair after having evidently overheard the conversation. "That's a famous Sherlock Holmes bit. Basically he tells his associate, Dr. Watson, to not forget about the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. When Watson asks what he means- because no one reported the dog doing anything- Holmes replies 'That's exactly it. There _was _no curious incident.' His point was that the dog wasn't alarmed or anything, so whoever had walked by where the dog was the night of the killing must have been familiar to the animal."

_Oh yeah, forgot this guy was a total Holmes freak, _thought Kaito with an inward smirk as he looked down at the ground. _That's about the only Holmes thing I know. But maybe now the two of them will pick up on what I'm trying to say _really_ happened here..._

"OH!" cried Shinichi as his eyes widened with sudden realization, turning to Satou and offering her a grin while he pointed his finger up in the air. "Isn't that weird? No one heard a dog barking or anything before the murder was discovered, so whoever was handling the dog when it got taken out of and put back into the car must have handled the dog before." He gave a pointed glance at the dead man's wife, who now had a sweat drop running down the side of her face. "Not to mention how bad it looked for the severely dog-allergic vice president when it was discovered that someone had moved the dog in and out. Except for the fact that he couldn't have done it without sneezing or itching like crazy if he was so allergic, and surely one of the witnesses would have seen and reported him acting like that as well."

"Hmm, you make a very good point or two," mumbled Megure as he listened carefully to what Shinichi was saying with his hand rubbing his chin. "What do you have to say to that deduction of this kid's?" he turned to the deceased's wife and asked. "I see. Well I guess we'll just have to continue our chat down at headquarters," he replied to her stony, angry silence a few moments later.

"Wow, that was a really good job Shinichi-niisan!" cried Kaito, and he really meant it. Jii and Kudo both, but especially Kudo, had expertly picked up on his hints and run with them. _This may work out better than I'd hoped..._

"What's your family name, kid? Maybe we'll have the good luck to see you at our next murder scene," chuckled Megure-keibu in a tone full of dark humor. "We can always use another competent investigator, even unofficially."

"Oh, Kudo. Kudo Shinichi," he replied while one hand rubbed the back of his head in a nervous gesture. "And this is Ookami Kihagi, who helped me," he added while pointing to Kaito.

"SHINICHI! KIHAGI!" came Ran's angry, bellowing voice from behind them, causing both to jump straight upwards. A flushed, stomping Ran stalked up to the pair of them. "GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW! WE HAVE CLOTHES TO BUY!" With that, she grabbed both of their ears and started marching them towards the clothing store they'd came out of over ten minutes ago.


	8. Chapter 8

Reviews make my day!

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"Well, you really didn't need my help back there after all, did you? That Kudo Shinichi you're staying with sure seems like one sharp guy, he solved the case- well, except for motive- as soon as you gave your hint," commented Jii as he and Kaito walked towards Kaito's house, the very protective Shinichi and Ran having only let them go off alone after Kaito had hurriedly concocted a hasty fable about Jii being his grandfather who was also a very busy traveling salesman, but who was scheduled to stay in town for a couple of days to pay his grandson Kihagi a visit since his parents were gone on their trip.

Kaito was extremely happy that Jii had immediately taken that story and fleshed it out a bit, explaining that he was sure that Kihagi's parents would be _very _grateful for Ran and Shinichi's kindnesses to their son and that he would be _more _than happy to take his grandson back home and pick some of his laundry up and then return both Kihagi and the laundry to Shinichi's house where he was staying. Shinichi and Ran had finally agreed to the trip after they exchanged cell phone numbers with Jii, even going so far as to call the number immediately to make sure that Jii's phone rang. _Jeez you two, overprotective much? _Kaito had thought in a half amused, half angry mood as he and Jii walked off to take the bus to Kaito's house.

"Yeah he is sharp. Maybe almost a little _too _sharp for my liking," replied Kaito sourly as they approached his front door after making sure that his mom was out of the house at her job and that there was no one watching them. "I mean, it's a good thing because slowly turning him into a tantei and building his reputation- and therefore clients and cases, since I'm using him as a front- will be easy thanks to his instincts, but I know that those same instincts also mean that I'm going to have to keep on my toes all the time around him, I can tell already. Still, staying with him is way better than staying with Mom, she won't be in danger and he shouldn't be in any danger because he doesn't know the real me, only Ookami Kihagi, and I definitely plan to keep it that way." Kaito pulled out his key ring, and then let out a disgusted huff as he realized that he couldn't even reach the lock on the front door to put his key in without some difficulty.

"What exactly happened to you, anyhow? Turning back into a child like you have- at least in the physical sense- isn't exactly normal, as I'm sure you know. And how did you meet those two teenagers that you're staying with in the first place?" inquired Jii as he took the proffered key ring from Kaito and opened the front door, letting the shrunken meitantei enter the house in front of him.

"I...don't know _what_ exactly happened to me, Jii-chan. All I know for certain is that Aoko and I went to Tropical Land, and while we were there a murder happened-that I quickly solved, of course. There were two weird guys in my suspect pool for the crime though, guys dressed from head to toe in black wearing old-fashioned hats, sunglasses and trench coats who were both acting very suspiciously." Kaito had his back turned to Jii at the time due to being very focused and busy rifling through his closet to see if he had some of his old kid clothes buried somewhere in the back of it so the tiny, currently busy magician didn't notice how white that the older man's face became when Kaito described the suspects' appearance.

"I decided to follow them after they'd been let go since the murderer got arrested, and then I watched them do what looked like a blackmail exchange with a CEO of some company that was doing gun smuggling on the side," Kaito continued while he kept at his still fruitless search in his rather messy closet. _THERE'S where my fake blood, rubber frog, backup hand buzzer and trick cards all went..._"Then while I was distracted and busy taking photos of everything that was going on one of the two of them- the one with long blonde hair- whacked me over the head pretty good, then gave me some kind of pill and water with it so that I had to swallow the pill." He let out a shudder that didn't go unnoticed by Jii. "A couple minutes after that it suddenly felt like my entire body was on fire, and I passed out.

"When I woke up a long time after that, it was at Kudo's house- they'd found me after I passed out at Tropical Land and brought me back to his house; I apparently had been running a very high fever at the time they found me according to Mouri and Kudo. It wasn't much longer after that when I found that I'd shrunk somehow. The only conclusion that I can draw right now, as weird as it is, is that that pill that guy made me choke down that was _supposed _to be a poison of some sort somehow made my body reverse its physical age instead. I mean, as you can tell, mentally I'm still seventeen so whatever was in that thing doesn't seem to affect the brain or any memories, just the physical body itself.

"I made up the name Ookami Kihagi when Mouri asked me my name at dinner; I've decided that it's probably best for everybody concerned if those guys who tried to kill me are left to the assumption that they were successful- at least until I've reversed whatever the hell they did to me with that pill. Just so you know so we don't get our stories mixed up at any point in the future, as far as Mouri and Kudo are concerned my parents are on a long, extended vacation and have been sending me some pocket money every week while I'm staying alone at this house."

"Kaito," began Jii in a very serious tone, "you said the men that tried to kill you at Tropical Land were dressed from head to toe in black?"

"Yeah, like gangsters in a movie or something," Kaito replied as he climbed down from his shelves and shut his closet with a loud 'hmmph.' "I thought I had a bag of my old clothes back here somewhere but Mom must have moved it." He suddenly turned and faced Jii, looking up at him squarely with narrowed eyes. "Jii, you've seen men like those before, haven't you? I can tell that you know something about them or men like them. Spill it."

"Well...your mother didn't want you to know until you were a bit older..." began Jii feebly, which caused Kaito's curiosity to become even more piqued as the older man sat down on his bed and took a deep breath that was followed by a very sad sigh. "The accident during his show's finale that claimed your father's life eight years ago was no accident, Kaito. He was _murdered_."

"Say _what_?" Kaito was completely shell-shocked, and he could feel the old wound of his father's passing ripped wide open when he had thought it at least mostly healed. He was too stunned to say or ask anything else.

"You heard me. He was murdered, Kaito. By strange men dressed from head to toe in black, just like you've described."

"B-but why?" he finally managed to stammer twenty seconds later while the world seemed to tilt off its axis slightly. _Dad..._

"Because he refused to steal something for _them_ when they approached him and asked him to. Those black-suited people. They silenced him permanently the following week due to that refusal, giving it every appearance of a tragic stage accident."

Kaito quickly went from shell-shocked to very, very confused. "Refused to steal something for them? Jii-chan, what are you talking about?"

"This was the _other _thing your mom didn't want you knowing until you were a little older, but I suppose the cat's way too far out of the bag now." Jii got up off of Kaito's bed and began walking out into their hallway rapidly. "Follow me, Kaito. Hurry up; we don't have much time left before we have to catch the bus to the Kudo place."

Kaito followed Jii out to their upstairs living room, where the large portrait of his father, Kuroba Toichi, was hanging, the master magician in full white stage regalia and holding his top hat upside down. "Here we are," muttered Jii. "Push it, you should still be tall enough to" he added to Kaito while indicating a spot about halfway down the right side of the portrait, tapping it very lightly with a grin on his face. "Well, go ahead."

"What do you mean, push it? It's just a plain portrait of Dad that's on the waaaAAAAAAALLLL!"

Kaito's eyes widened as the portrait gave way and suddenly spun around on a hidden internal axis, carrying him with it for a few rotations before he got flung back out into the living room and against the wall. When he finally managed to become undizzy enough to stand back up a bit later, Kaito looked at his father's picture and realized that it had been replaced by a completely different image. It still contained a painted image of a man in a somewhat similar white costume, but this man had a large white cape that was billowing around his upper body and being held by one white-gloved hand while the other hand was tucked away under the cape. He was also wearing a white top hat instead of holding it, and a large monocle completely covered his right eye.

"Who...who the heck is that person, Jii? And why do we have a portrait that spins around like that?"

"That is also your father, Kaito. Dressed as his other persona that was known by several nicknames. Kaitou Kid, The Magician of the Moonlight, International Criminal 1412..." Jii drifted off before turning to face Kaito. "Besides being an expert magician, your father was also something else entirely- a master thief who constantly stumped the police for over eight years before his tragic death. And I was his accomplice in those amazing thefts."

"You're telling me my father was a CRIMINAL?!? A common THIEF?" demanded Kaito angrily once he'd recovered from the second major shock he'd received to his system in the last five minutes, desperately not wanting to believe what he was hearing about his father.

"Not a common thief or criminal at all, Kaito," replied Jii firmly. "He thrilled and amazed crowds at all his heists, and he also returned everything that he took eventually." He reached over and tapped the portrait again. "Let's try this again now that you know what's coming. I want you to see his headquarters-it's a hidden room located behind this wall."

"Wait, wait. He stole things...and then returned them later?" _Now where, oh where have I seen that exceptionally bizarre pattern of behavior before in a thief? _

"Yes, he did. He would never tell me what he was looking for, but there was something he was trying to find." He shook his head. "And I already know what you're thinking- there's another criminal who's been in the news over about the past year and a half that does the exact same thing. We'll talk about that after we've poked around in here a bit." Jii tapped the portrait again, and Kaito reluctantly walked over to it and slowly pressed again, ready for what was coming this round and managing to land on the other side. Jii followed him quickly, much more gracefully since he had his far heavier weight and taller size to assist with getting by the rapidly spinning image.

"Welcome to headquarters," said Jii cheerfully as he began walking around the room, seeming to have shed ten years after he'd finished locking the portrait back into place. Just then, a dust-covered tape recorder that was sitting on an equally dust-covered table started up.

"Hello, Kaito, it's been awhile."

"It's Dad's voice!" Kaito cried out in shock, not knowing how he instantly placed a voice that he hadn't heard in over eight years but somehow recognizing it anyhow.

"My true identity...i...kai...ki...and..."

"Oh, it seems that your father tried to leave you a parting message but the tape got all messed up thanks to sitting for so long," said Jii sadly. "It looks like he suspected what they were going to do to him..." He walked over to the machine and began an attempt at untangling the tape. "Nothing doing, I'm afraid. It's good, twisted and stuck in there."

"Alright, Jii. Now that we're in here, talk. What about the Black Fox? What do you know?"

"The Black Fox was the only person your father ever truly considered a worthy rival- besides Nakamori Ginzo-keibu, the head of the KID task force back then, of course," replied Jii. "The two of them had so many similarities in their methods, yet were opposites in just as many ways. Both were thieves at the very pinnacle of their games, both incredibly cunning and brilliant strategists, both always returned what they took but where your father put on elaborate public shows and tried to get into the public's eye as hard as he could, enjoying the showmanship of it all, Black Fox operated from the shadows and in near total secrecy- Black Fox was never even caught on film for their entire career that suddenly seemed to end about seven and a half years ago." He coughed. "Until their reemergence of about a year and a half ago, that is. The reappearance that you've been working on with Nakamori-keibu and following so fervently."

"So the two of them were rivals?"

"Well, I don't know if you could exactly call it a rivalry. There were some elements of that, but they seemed to have a very peculiar relationship," replied Jii after a few thought-filled moments of silence. "They seemed to target similar items, and they would leave teasing notes for each other sometimes- well, Toichi more than Black Fox, but still."

"Huh?"

"The easiest way to explain it, I think, is to let me tell you a story..."


	9. Chapter 9

Reviews make me grin!

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**BLACK FOX DOES IT AGAIN!**

**KAITOU KID PULLS OFF ANOTHER AMAZING HEIST!**

**POLICE STILL STUMPED AS TO IDENTITIES OF MASTER THIEVES**

**ARE KAITOU KID AND THE BLACK FOX THE SAME PERSON?**

"Well now, Toichi, what do you intend to do about this other thief that's horning in on your territory- the Black Fox?" inquired Jii as he lingered over a cup of good, strong black coffee with his friend, a laugh following the question as he placed the newspapers with the most recent headlines down and handed them over to the master thief for his own inspection. "He certainly seems to be as clever as his police-provided pseudonym would indicate, doesn't he? Although he's not nearly as showy as you."

"What kind of question is that?" huffed Toichi angrily as he poked at the query posed in last headline with his finger with a firm tap. "You would think they would realize how vastly differently that the man and I operate. Well, aside from the stealing right under Nakamori-keibu's nose, of course," he added with a wide grin.

"What makes you so certain that it's a man?" Jii's eyes widened as he looked over at Toichi. "Toichi, have you actually _seen _the Black Fox during one of your heists or something?"

"No, no, nothing like that. He's way too careful to be ever caught on camera, remember? What makes you think he'd be careless enough to let someone he considers his 'main rival' see him at one of hsi heists?" Toichi got up with a dismissive wave of his hand from the small, white round table in the hidden back room that was the Kaitou Kid's headquarters and walked over to the back wall, where his books on magic tricks, makeup and security systems were neatly sorted by category. "He...well, he left me a note. Awhile ago, back when he first started stealing the same types of items I normally go after."

"A note?"

"Remember that large Persian rug I was going to steal about eight months ago?"

"Yes. We spent over two days trying to figure out how we were going to fit that thing into the van," chuckled Jii before his face suddenly grew serious. "But Toichi, that was over four years ago! Are you saying that he's been communicating with you all this time?"

"Not with any kind of consistency, but yes." Toichi pulled out a small note he'd wedged in between two of the books and tossed it to Jii. "Every once in a while he'll beat me to whatever I'm stealing, too. And leave behind a note addressed specifically to Kaitou Kid that's always the same." Jii opened the neatly folded note and was greeted with neat, crisp handwriting on the center of the bottom half.

_Sorry to waste your time and effort Magician of the Moonlight, but the Black Fox has already claimed his spoils and retreated to his den._

"What about the stuffed animal? Didn't they say that there's-"

"Yes, there's always one left at the scene, not that the police wish that fact was ever made public." Toichi emitted a brief, tight laugh. "He leaves behind a plush animal. A small black fox, to be specific." The magician then pulled out some plans they were forming for the heist of a jewel-encrusted statue on display in a museum and began unrolling them, spreading them out on the table and obscuring the newspapers underneath.

"Is _that _how he got that nickname? I'd always wondered. The police were awfully closemouthed about it, they didn't even like their nickname for him getting out."

"Yes." Toichi then indicated the plans opened before them. "Now, tonight we're going to beat the Black Fox at his own game..."

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"KAITOOOOOOOOOOOO! I know you're here, the door was open! Where are you? I have your homework for today!" Aoko's voice came very faintly from the other side of the secret room's door, snapping Jii out of the telling of his tale and causing both to panic slightly.

"ACK! Quick, Jii-chan, we gotta think of something!" Kaito was rather disappointed that Jii hadn't been able to get too far into the story, but there was no time to think about that now! _Gah, this could be very _very_ bad if she sees me right now...we've known each other since we were kids, she's sure to notice the resemblance..._

"Now, now. Calm down. We already have a cover story if she sees you, we just need to take the back exit out of here and meet her- and come up with where Kuroba Kaito currently is in a hurry if she asks." Jii walked over to another part of the room and easily swung aside what turned out to be an empty, fake bookcase that had a door behind it. "This will take us out to the upstairs guest bedroom, if it's not jammed up after all these years of not being used." Jii shoved hard on the door and after a bit of effort, it gave way and the pair semi-tumbled out into the guest bedroom, the door snapping shut behind then just as Aoko came running up the stairs due to the noise. She entered the room and looked at Jii.

"Hello Konsuke-san," began Aoko politely before she looked around. "Where's Kaito? He's supposed to be laid up with an awful fever but he's not in his room. I have his homework for him." She held up a thick stack of papers and waved them around a bit.

"Oh, he has a fever all right- _case _fever," replied Jii with a grin. "After his fever finally broke last night, he got a call about a case some department somewhere is stuck on and he took off immediately for some remote district that's far away from here- he didn't specify where, just asked me to send a few things his way." At the hurt look at that appeared in Aoko's eyes he quickly added "But don't feel badly that he didn't call you- he didn't even tell his own _mother_ he was taking off. I guess it was a real emergency."

Just then Kaito somehow managed to trip over his own foot from where he was trying to hide behind the bed, landing with a face-first thunk on the carpet and catching Aoko's attention. She let out a small squeal of delight and ran over to him, picking Kaito clear up off the ground before practically crushing him into her chest in a firm hug. "HE'S SO CUTE! He looks just like Kaito when we were that age! Konsuke-san, why didn't you ever tell me you had a grandson before or bring him over till now?"

Trying his hardest to suppress a laugh as he watched a _very _red-faced Kaito get released from the crushing embrace and stumble over to his side, Jii offered a mild smile and said "Well I don't get to see him too often, but this is Kihago. Ookami Kihagi." He tapped Kaito lightly on the back in an attempt to bring the still-blushing boy back down to Earth. "Kihagi, be polite now and turn around and introduce yourself. This is Nakamori Aoko, a friend of Kuroba Kaito's, the meitantei I was telling you about earlier."

Kaito slowly turned around while taking a deep breath, praying that his beet-red face had toned down somewhat as he looked up at his childhood friend, very glad that she had jumped to exactly the conclusions he had hoped she would if his hiding had failed. "Hi, I'm Ookami Kihagi! Nice to meet you, Aoko-neesan."

"Nice to meet you as well, Kihagi" replied Aoko with a wide, genuine smile before she turned her attention back to Jii. "So is Kaito going to be gone for a long time? I guess if he will be I can bring his work to his mom..."

"Unfortunately Kaito had no idea of how long he would be gone when we chatted briefly this morning. Apparently it's a rather...involved case." He glanced briefly down at Kaito. "But I imagine that yes, he'd appreciate you bringing his homework by."

"Alright, I'll do that." Aoko handed the homework over to Jii and rubbed Kaito's head before heading downstairs with a slight bounce in her step and exiting out of the house.

"_Someone _was a little embarrassed back there," laughed Jii as he poked Kaito on top of his head. "Where was that Poker Face of yours then, eh?"

"I can _still _manage to kick you in kneecap, you know!" cried Kaito angrily as he made a halfhearted lunge and kick attempt that Jii deftly evaded, feeling himself begin to uncontrollably blush yet again at the memory of a few minutes ago.

"I...I didn't believe it when Jii told me earlier...but..."

This all-too-familiar voice issuing from behind the pair was accompanied by the crashing, thunking sounds of several bags containing various items thudding to the ground as his mother dropped them from the sheer shock of seeing her now-shrunken son.

"Mom," Kaito finally managed to get out after a few moments of stunned silence all around. _Damn it...this was absolutely NOT the way that I wanted her to first see me like this! I really wanted to call her and tell her myself, talk to her and try and explain things, well at least what I've managed to piece together so far about what happened to me and that stupid pill that I'm pretty sure caused this...give her some time to mentally prepare first before we met..._Kaito was also now positively _infuriated _with Jii because he quickly realized that at some point while he, Kudo and Mouri had been busy picking a few outfits for him in the clothing store the older man had probably weaseled his way outside and snuck a phone call to his mom.

"I told you that I wasn't joshing with you when we spoke earlier on the phone, Akita-san," murmured Jii softly as he walked over and placed an arm around her shoulders to help her stay upright since she was still looking a bit pale at the sight of her son. "I was in almost as much shock when I first realized that it was truly and really _Kaito _in that tiny little body after he walked up to me in the store and said my name." He gave her a rueful smile as Akita slowly walked over to Kaito and knelt down in front of him. "I thought Kaito had enlisted a young boy to play a prank on me at first, truth be told."

"I didn't want you to find out like this," Kaito said sadly as he gave Jii an icy glare over his mom's shoulder. "I was going to call you once I'd gotten things a bit more sorted out-"

"Well, you probably don't have time to explain everything to me now," Akita cut him off while gently brushing Kaito's cheek with a vaguely amazed expression still on her face as she studied her son, "but I guess you really _will _be needing that bag of child's clothes of yours that I saved like Jii said you would. We can chat while I go get it. But before I get it for you the very _least _you can tell me where you're staying now and why you haven't come home at all until now or even called me. I was absolutely worried sick when you didn't come home from Tropical Land and Aoko said you just ran off like that, and especially after she called me and said you'd missed school."

"I'm staying with a guy named Kudo Shinichi who's my age. He has a big house on the other side of town in Beika district to himself, apparently his parents are off on trips all the time. He and his friend Mouri Ran found me after those-"

"Kudo Shinichi? Would that be Yusaku and Yukiko's son?" She stood back up and looked over at Jii. "Did you see him?"

"Yes, it believe it _was_ Kudo Shinichi, at least I think it was- haven't laid eyes on the boy in several years, after all, but he did look a _lot _like Kaito when they were little if memory serves. I actually did a double take walking by the boy because I thought it was Kaito in the wrong part of town, even if his hair did look much neater than usual." He offered Kaito a sheepish grin. "Which was a big part of the reason that I thought Kaito was joshing me at first when he came up to me."

"So, how exactly did this happen to you? And why are you not staying here? I think I get to know at least that much before I send you out the door."

"That's for your protection, Mom. Believe me. It's the same reason why I never called you also." He let out a deep sigh. "Where to begin. Well, I suppose it starts out back when Aoko and I went to Tropical Land, and there was a murder on the rollercoaster..."


	10. Chapter 10

*fangirl squeals* THEY KISSED! OMG THEY FINALLY KISSED! (Chapter 673 of the DC manga) XD THEY FINALLY FLIPPING KISSED! *squeal*

* * *

"WHOA! That's awesome, Ookami! How did you learn to do that trick with your pen?"

Kaito shook his head a bit as he was snapped out of his reverie, quickly causing him to turn his attention to the freckled, brown-haired boy that had asked him the question after realizing that his fake last name he'd been introduced to the class with this morning had been used. Kaito had no idea what the other boy was talking about at first, then realized that he must have been referring to Kaito's rather deeply ingrained habit of pulling his pencils and pens out of thin air when he went to do his schoolwork in class. It was a very easy illusion to accomplish and a sight that his _actual_ classmates had grown so used to seeing by now that he hadn't thought twice about the act and had done the same trick as always, but _this_ time in the presence of a bunch of little elementary school kids that had never seen it before. This would probably not end well unless he could think of another distraction rather quickly.

"Oh, uh, I watch magicians on TV a lot and figured out how they do the trick, so I practice it sometimes." Kaito prayed that this explanation would placate the boy, but he only fully finished approached Kaito's desk and began nosing through his backpack that was filled with new school supplies Ran and Shinichi had bought with his money the day before. _At least Mom agreed to actually start leaving me care packages with money every week like Kudo and Mouri think that I've been getting all along, and she sent me home with that bag of my little kid clothes. Now if these nosy kids will just get the hell out of my stuff, maybe I can actually begin to try and get through having to attend elementary school all over again. _"Excuse me, but why are you going through my backpack like that? It's not yours!" _Ugh, kids...No sense of privacy or personal space._ Although Kaito did have to ruefully admit that his occasional flip of Aoko's skirt definitely counted as a similar invasion of the privacy bubble.

"Mitsuhiko! That's rude to poke through Ookami-san's things like that!" A little brown-haired girl grabbed Kaito's backpack from Mitsuhiko over his vociferous protestations and placed it back down on the ground by Kaito's desk. "Sorry Ookami-san, Mitsuhiko doesn't know better sometimes."

"I just wanted to be friends with him, Ayumi!"

"Didn't you learn from Kogakure-san that trying to make friends that way usually doesn't work?" Ayumi offered Mitsuhiko a gentle smile that caused the boy to blush slightly as he backed away a few steps from her while nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. "He got really upset at you when you started looking through his stuff, too."

"Aww, that guy Kogakure is really weird anyhow, remember? Won't come to class when it rains and won't play any games with anyone besides table games like Go Fish or checkers. What kind of weird boy doesn't know how to even play _football_?" The particularly large boy that Kaito recalled as being named Kojima Genta walked over to where the group was chatting and crossed his arms while he finished summing up his opinion. "That guy is just plain creepy."

"He won't come to class when it rains?" Kaito's meitantei instincts were stirring rapidly and he found himself asking the question in spite of his vow to himself that he wouldn't try to deliberately get himself mixed up in any sort of detective business- well, unless it somehow related to the men dressed in black that had not only shrunk him, but apparently murdered his father eight years ago as well. _That's exceedingly bizarre. And it also sounds like he's really trying to avoid physical contact with anyone if he won't participate in roughhousing games or sports..._If it had just been the lack of contact, Kaito would have dismissed it as his merely disliking physical contact. But never coming to class when it rained?

"Yeah. His full name is Kogakure Shinda. He started coming here about six months ago. And he hasn't ever come to class when it rains, just like we said." Ayumi indicated the rather gloomy, stormy weather outside the window -a highly unseasonable summer storm- then added "No one has ever seen his parents or who he's living with either. When he stays home his work gets left in an envelope by the teacher and it gets picked up at the front office." She turned and pointedly looked at an unoccupied desk that Kaito guessed probably belonged to the boy they were currently discussing. "We think he's so shy because he's embarrassed of his Osaka-ben that he tries so hard to act like he doesn't have," Ayumi added in a conspiratorial whisper while the other two boys nodded firmly in agreement. "We told him that it doesn't matter, but-"

"An Osaka-ben that he tries to hide?" This had quickly gone from mildly interesting to a full-blown mystery, and Kaito felt himself rapidly being drawn in. No one of the strange behaviors was significant in and of itself, but lump them all together and it sure smelled like the beginnings of an interesting case. He got up and walked over to the empty desk and noticed that Shinda's last name where it was displayed on the same little desk placard the rest of the class had was spelled out using an unusual combination of kanji that was normally read as 'hidden behind trees.' _What an strange last name. Of course, look who's talking, Mr. 'Ookami written just like the animal!'_

"Yeah. He's let it slip through a time or two in class, and he always looks real scared when it happens, then he gets all angry and quiet for the whole rest of the day," explained Mitsuhiko. "Like Ayumi said we think it's 'cause he's embarrassed of his accent." He then noticed Kaito's rather determined look and cocked an eyebrow. "Looks like you think there's something more to it."

Kaito hadn't meant to wear such a serious expression in front of the group of kids, but he supposed that it was too late to turn back and try to deny his interest in exploring the mystery since not only had he asked several questions by this point, the other three kids were also now gathered around his desk with very bloodhound-like expressions plastered all over their very eager faces. And there _was_ something exceptionally intriguing about the facts at hand... "Well, there could be. Maybe we can work together and figure it out, eh?"

"You mean like be detectives on TV, Ookami? Neat!" commented Ayumi with a broad smile. "So where should we start looking at stuff? His desk maybe?"

_Aah, kids. No compunction against breaking and entering, _thought Kaito with an inward chuckle as he nodded his head before getting up from his own desk and walking over to Shinda's with his three new friends following right behind him. _Let's see...Maybe start with his handwriting? Or wait, a description would probably be the better thing to start with. _Unfortunately, their sensei chose that exact moment to begin class again, interrupting the investigation much to Kaito's chagrin.

* * *

"Hey Shinichi-niisan? Does Agasa-hakase have a grandson staying with him or something?" Kaito figured that if anyone would have an immediate, definitive answer to the question it would be Kudo, who regularly went over with Mouri to help the hakase with his housework and general upkeep of the property.

Kaito was rather surprised at the other boy's reaction to his question. Shinichi gave him a rather puzzled look as he placed his chopsticks down onto his small sushi plate to study Kaito more intently. "Why would you ask that, Kihagi? But no, Agasa-hakase's never mentioned anything like that at all and _I_ sure haven't seen any signs of a little kid staying over there." As Shinichi picked the sticks back up to remove a few pieces of sushi from the large tray they'd brought home, his face filled with sudden recall. "Although now that you mention it there _was _that pair of red kid's sneakers that was outside his back doorway last month along with a couple of other newer-looking pairs of boy's shoes when Ran and I helped him clean up a bit. And he _did_ seem pretty upset when we found them, although he tried to pass it off as some shoes that his grandchild left there when they last visited."

"Well that's weird that he says there's no kids staying there with him, because there's a boy in my new class who's been there for about six months that's getting all his homework picked up by Agasa-hakase after school when he misses class."

"Say WHAT?" Shinichi's genuine shock and confusion were quickly overwritten by an amused look. "Let me guess, is that why you were so late coming back here after school today? Because you were poking around after school investigating?"

In between placing more pieces of sashimi onto his smaller plate Kaito looked down at the floor and mumbled "Maybe" as if he was embarrassed of being caught snooping before he returned to eating. _Little kid with hand caught in the cookie jar...little kid with hand caught in the cookie jar..._

"It would explain a few other weird things Ran and I have found over there when we've helped clean, too, come to think of it. Ran mentioned that over the last few months she's noticed some extra dishes in the sink now and again, like Agasa-hakase's had someone over to eat. And he has started asking for more of certain foods than he used to over about that same amount of time. Rice and some basic stuff like that. Ran and I thought that maybe he had a girlfriend or somebody that he didn't want to admit having over, but maybe there _is_ a kid or someone else staying there with him."

Almost providentially, the phone rang at that exact moment, and it turned out to be Agasa-hakase, the very subject of their current conversation, asking if Shinichi had any spare AA batteries that he could borrow and return later after he'd purchased some more. _Talk about a perfect excuse to go nose around if I can talk Kudo into letting me go walk the batteries over, assuming that he has any to lend. I hope so._

"Yeah sure, Agasa-hakase. I can send Kihagi over with some in a few minutes once I figure out where Dad misplaced them at." He hung up the phone and began clearing their meal after the pair polished off a few more sushi apiece. "Mind looking in the top drawer of that cupboard by the entryway while I clean up, Kihagi? They're usually in there. If they're _not_ there I'm gonna have to go digging."

"OK." Kaito quickly headed for the entryway, mulling over the information that Shinichi had provided- he was quite an astute observer, a trait that Kaito felt would come in very handy and also suspected had something to do with the other boy's apparent fascination with Sherlock Holmes. This kid in his class, Kogakure Shinda, sounded more and more like he was a highly reclusive child that was trying to hide _something_, though Kaito wasn't quite sure what that was yet since his investigation with the other three curious kids in his new class had barely begun. Well, hopefully he could answer at least a few of his questions once he walked over to Agasa-hakase's house and delivered the batteries.

Five minutes later, he was rapping on the door and trying to think of an excuse to come inside when he heard the older man call out "Come on in and put the batteries down on the counter, thanks." Kaito walked in the door and scanned the entire living room he was walking through with eagle eyes, berating himself for not having studied things more carefully when he had stayed at the house previously but at the same time knowing that he hadn't been looking for evidence of a rather reclusive kid staying in the house back when he'd stayed for the day. He saw Agasa enter the room from the kitchen where he was seemingly cooking his own evening meal, judging from the food smells that were coming from that room.

"Oh thank you, Kihagi! These will come in real handy-"

Just then, the sound of soft footsteps came from behind the professor's back, causing Kaito to peer around him to see the visitor that he had strongly suspected would be there. "Who's that, Agasa-hakase? I've never seen him before."

The dark brown-haired, deep green-eyed boy who appeared to be about Kaito's current (apparent) age that had been entering the kitchen from the hallway leapt up slightly after Kaito asked the question before turning and giving both himself and the hakase glares, then finished entering the kitchen with a harrumph. He had been wearing a light blue long-sleeved T-shirt and new-looking blue jeans along with black tennis shoes, but it was his face and hands that caused Kaito to wonder even more about the boy. That light skin of his was pale- a shade or two _too _pale when his hair color and eye color were taken into account. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed it, but Kaito knew a makeup job when he saw one thanks to his father's being so involved with the art. It did, however, most thoroughly explain why he wouldn't go out in rain or want to be involved in activities that could potentially strip the makeup- he was probably using the cheap, store-bought stuff from the ladies' makeup section that wasn't worth a damn. The question was _why_.

"Oh, don't mind Shinda's bad temper- he doesn't like rain because he can't go out," explained Agasa nervously as the other boy reentered the room. "He's visiting for the-"

"Hey Agasa-hakase, the dinner is going to burn if you don't turn this off you know!" Kaito's highly sensitive ear, cultivated after years of perfecting the art of listening to and then imitating voices and accents, immediately picked up on what was a (rather bad) attempt at covering up a broad, thick Osaka-ben. _It's just like Genta, Mitsuhiko and Ayumi said. _

"Oh, thanks Shinda! I forgot all about it. Just leave the batteries there and show yourself out, alright?" Agasa dashed into the kitchen, and Kaito slowly put the batteries down onto the entrance table and walked out the door. Now that Kaito had actually _seen_ the mysterious Shinda, he was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the exceedingly strange boy. School tomorrow would probably prove quite interesting.


	11. Chapter 11

Whee!

* * *

There was definitely something highly suspicious about Kogakure Shinda.

Kaito was even more certain of it now that he'd watched the boy interact with his classmates for the past few days- or rather, studiously avoid that interaction. Shinda frequently spent their recesses indoors reading, but Kaito figured that that was probably due to him not wanting roughhousing elementary school students wiping off his makeup. Shinda also never raised his hand to answer any questions, always having to be specifically asked by the teacher to speak (although Kaito strongly suspected this was due to the rather thick Osaka-ben he was trying to hide rather badly.) Shinda also tended to try and hide himself when they were split into groups so that he would wind up by himself if there was an odd number of students.

"What's wrong Ookami? You're staring off into space again," laughed Mitsuhiko as he waved his hand in front of Kaito's face and brought him back out of his musings.

"Oh, I was just thinking about this math problem," lied Kaito quickly as he pointed to a subtraction problem that he hadn't completed yet. "But I think I know the answer now," he added brightly as he scrawled the answer in with a deliberately messy hand. _Yeah. Twelve minus eight, real rocket science going on here. _

Shinichi had been genuinely shocked when Kaito returned home and announced that he had indeed met a boy approximately his own (seeming) age who was staying with Agasa-hakase, but it had been Shinichi's actions after that reaction that had even further roused Kaito's interest. There had been a strange, bizarre phone call to Agasa-hakase that Kaito hadn't been able to catch all of. However, what he _had_ managed to overhear had been more than enough to cause a cocked eyebrow.

_...is THAT where it went? You could have told me earlier! Now I know where the first one disappeared to. _

Not knowing what Shinichi had been referring to was absolutely driving Kaito up the wall at the moment. Shinichi had been rather angry and confrontational about whatever the thing had been, but the other boy had rather hastily terminated the phone call once he had heard Kaito moving around on the other side of the wall (stupid child-sized bladder! Just thinking back to it caused Kaito's temper to flare.) Kaito had found himself rather hastily inventing a rather inventive yarn about dropping a coin to explain his skulking on his hands and feet with such a purposeful expression. He had luckily had a 100 yen coin in his pocket at the time which he stealthily apparated into his hand to give more of an air of authenticity to the story, and Shinichi seemed to fully buy his story once he'd produced the coin.

"...walked up to you at recess, Ookami." Genta's voice came drifting into Kaito's ear as the magician realized that he'd been letting his attention drift off yet again.

"Sorry. What was that you just said?"

"I said that Kogakure started to walk up to you at recess like he wanted to talk to you. But then he suddenly stopped and turned away after he only go about halfway there." Genta seemed a little miffed by the fact that Kaito had spaced out again and totally ignored him (even though it wasn't really 'spacing out' in the normal sense of the phrase but rather Kaito thinking.)

"But that can't be right, Genta. He almost never talks unless teacher makes him answer a question in class." Ayumi appeared to be somewhat puzzled as she said this before turning to Kaito with a bright expression. "Maybe you should talk to him!"

"Well he, uhh, doesn't seem to be in a talking sort of mood right now. He looks busy." Kaito inclined his head towards Shinda, who was currently sitting with his back turned to the room as he furiously worked alone on what was supposed to be a group project. _Besides, I don't want to talk to him until I have some more answers about just what's going on with him. Why the makeup? Why was Agasa-hakase trying to hide him? What object was Kudo referring to during that phone call? _There was one thing in life that drove Kaito nuts even above being out of supplies for his magic tricks: not having answers to questions, and having so many of them bumping around in his mind at once only served to sharply increase his displeasure. However, it wasn't like he could just walk up to Shinda and confront him in the middle of their classroom, especially on the issue of the makeup the other boy was using, without risking a big confrontation that Kaito simply didn't feel like dealing with.

* * *

_Sorry to do this to you, but I have to make sure you _stay_ asleep tonight. _

Shinichi had made a point of preparing dinner a couple of hours later than normal so that the drowsiness that would ensue following the consumption of the meal wouldn't seem too unnatural. Agasa had provided him with just enough carefully measured, flavorless mild sedative to help send the other boy on his way to sleep, which Shinichi mixed into the glass of milk that his guest always took with his evening meals. Shinichi didn't like the idea of using the stuff too much, but he also knew that he couldn't afford any mishaps tonight- or any overly inquisitive house guests coming out of their rooms when he was busy planning one of his heists with Agasa. He didn't mind curiosity, except when it could potentially expose his carefully constructed double life. _Maybe Agasa-hakase was right about letting him stay with me for who knows how long...then again HE'S been hiding a kid for the past six months without telling me a word about it _and_ letting him have access to some of the stuff that he originally made for me!_

"Hey Kihagi, dinner," Shinichi called as he entered the dining room with the tray of food and sleep-inducing glass of milk in hand. "Come and eat before it gets cold."

"OK. Thank you Shinichi-niisan," called Kihagi happily before he entered the dining room and scrambled up onto the chair before digging in the curried chicken Ran had left the pair in the fridge yesterday with a gusto, polishing off the chicken and his milk in a matter of a few minutes with a soft, satisfied burp signaling that the cleaning of his plate was complete.

_Whoa...I usually get a little drowsy after a meal, but this is absolutely ridiculous_. Kaito shook his head back and forth firmly after he realized that he'd been willing his eyes to stay open for the last few minutes about ten minutes after he'd finished his meal, wondering why he suddenly felt like every drop of energy had been drained out of him and why the thought of bed seemed so completely, thoroughly appealing at the moment. _I really feel like I could just pass out right here on the couch, right now. This is weird. It's not like I did anything unusually exhausting today or anything, besides a little hide and seek at recess..._The evening news program that he'd been trying to watch was blurring in front of him over and over after every time he willed his eyes to refocus, and he came to the conclusion that he was rapidly losing the fight with himself to stay awake. After sliding off the couch and nearly stumbling to the ground thanks to lack of coordination that stemmed from being so sleepy, Kaito called out "I'm heading to bed" in a drowse-thickened voice towards the kitchen, where Kudo was still busying himself cleaning up the evening meal.

"OK. I'll put together your lunch kit for you, it'll be in the fridge" came Shinichi's somewhat echoey reply as Kaito headed down the hall and entered his room, where he darn near fell asleep in his good, brand new school clothes before willing himself to change into his pajamas.

After Shinichi finished straightening up the kitchen, he headed to Kaito's bedroom and carefully, slowly creaked open the door to peek in and reassure himself that the other boy was fully out of it and asleep; the tiny, insistent snores emanating from the bed and the steady rise and fall of the comforter told Shinichi that he was. Thus placated, Shinichi nodded to himself before softly reclosing the door and heading to the house's library, where Agasa was already waiting having admitted himself without ringing the bell.

"That stuff worked like a charm, he's out like a light" Shinichi commented as he began pulling certain detective novels from the shelves in a deliberate sequence that he had long ago memorized before resetting them. "We need to discuss the kid you have staying with you after we get into the Den and the fact that you let him have my voice changer," Shinichi added in a somewhat surly tone before grabbing the last of the books, which was really not a book at all but a lever that was only allowed to trip once all the other books had been removed in the proper order. After he flipped the book firmly downward, the shelves that the books had been on suddenly moved over to the left, revealing a door-sized open passageway that led into what seemed to be pitch darkness.

"It's...complicated," sighed Agasa as he followed Shinichi into the passageway before pulling the bookcase back into place behind them, a firm 'click' signaling that everything was back in place so nothing would look out of the ordinary on the other side. "An acquaintance of mine brought him to me and asked me to take care of him, so I am. That's as best I can sum it up, really." _Well, that along with the fact that he's actually an Osakan meitantei named Hattori Heiji who's close to your age, but he apparently somehow got shrunk back into a small child after he ingested some strange experimental poison...Shiho-san was so vague on that part of it..._

"Well that doesn't explain the fact that you let him play around with my voice changer," snapped Shinichi as he turned on the bare bulb above them with the nearby switch, plain grey cement walls revealing themselves along with a set of cement steps that spiraled downward, a thin black steel railing the only safety net provided for the trek down. "I spent weeks frantically looking everywhere for it, I thought I'd dropped it at a heist or lost it," he continued as he began to follow the steps downward with Agasa not far behind. "Why did you let him have it anyhow? Even though you made another one for me that's beside the point."

"It must have fallen out of your pocket at some point when we were making final preparations at my house some time ago; I don't know how He- ahem, how he managed to find it, but he did. I explained it off as one of my inventions, which is true enough." It was then that the pair dismounted the spiral staircase and stepped into what they always referred to as the Den, a rather large multipurpose room that contained all manner of gadgets and inventions by Agasa-hakase to help Shinichi in his robberies, as well as several black plush foxes nestled neatly into one of the corners and the materials on a nearby table to produce several more of those foxes. The trick was to space out the buying of the fabric and supplies enough so that no one purchase looked suspicious, as well as spacing the buying out at several different handicraft stores scattered across the different districts of Tokyo.

"Just don't do something like that again without talking to me," replied Shinichi dryly as he grabbed a folded newspaper off the long table that was located in the center of the room and unfolded it to the Arts section, which contained color photographs of a recently opened art exhibit. "What's done is done I guess. Now we need to start planning this heist. I'm sure Nakamori-keibu will be all over it like white on rice since it's only three blocks from one of the larger police stations." He grinned a bit before adding "Not that proximity to a police station has ever stopped the Black Fox before." Shinichi then turned and glanced over at the outfit he always wore, a totally black and fairly form-fitting jumpsuit with a black bean hat that had one unique feature added on- a pair of fuzzy triangular black cloth fox-like ears affixed expertly with hot glue and rough sewing. His flexible, breathable latex mask that entirely covered the nose and bottom half of his face was also black, crafted to very closely resemble a fox's muzzle and whiskers. A tail would have been far too impractical.

"Still can't believe my uncle wore such a ridiculous getup, but it works," commented Shinichi before they got down to the business at hand of planning a rather illegal after-hours visit to a certain museum uptown before he would return the painting that he'd stolen two and a half weeks ago on the way back since it wasn't the Pandora that he was looking for, not that he'd expected it to be.


	12. Chapter 12

Stupid real life...

* * *

He was sick and tired of the two of them always being on the run- carefully couched in the guise of constant traveling to various book signings and crime lectures at different points around the world, of course- and Shinichi decided that Kudo Yusaku and Kudo Yukiko should have the ability to come back home and actually _stay_ for more than a night or two once every two blue moons, even if they were a fairly bothersome pair most of the time when they _were_ at home.

Naturally, that would mean continuing to live his risky, larcenous double life as the Black Fox until he found Pandora and destroyed it over his parent's protestations that his deceased 'uncle' wouldn't want him taking up the dangerous mantle and to think of his safety. (_Uncle_? His dad and mom apparently thought that he was an idiot, or at least not intelligent enough to pick up on the fact that the money and time had been spent constructing the Den at _their_ mansion instead of this mythical 'uncle's' residence. Even back before he'd made Agasa spill the beans he'd had his suspicions.)

Of course, Shinichi still wasn't quite sure what Pandora exactly_ was _besides it being a nonliving item either larger or smaller than a breadbox that had red in it when you held it up to the moonlight and was also at least somewhat valuable. He had stealthily, carefully filched all manner of red-tinted or red-streaked things he thought could possibly be Pandora since he'd rather impulsively decided to resurrect his father's abruptly retired _nom de vol_ about a year and a half ago, hoping that it would eventually draw the black-jacketed men that had seemingly been the cause of his dad and mom fleeing out of hiding. Unfortunately, none of the objects had panned out so far- not that Shinichi had ever expected the quest to be easy after he'd taken it up. There was also the grim fact that it was a race against time- the black jackets had an enormous advantage in numbers that they could use in their own search after all.

Ever since the day eight or so years ago that his dad's good friend Kuroba Toichi had suddenly, unexpectedly passed away due to a freak accident during the grand finale of one of his wildly popular magic shows, his father and mother had both suddenly begun running without explaining it in the slightest, only staying to attend the master magician's funeral out of respect to his widow before undergoing their perpetual globe-trotting and sending him a ridiculous amount of pocket money every week for food and some clothing.

Well, at least he had a house guest to spend some of it on now, although he and Agasa were going to have a heart to heart about the kid the scientist had been hiding for the last few months after this heist- the kid Agasa had let play around with the voice changer Shinichi had spent several panicked hours looking for when it had gone missing.

Shinichi still recalled with vivid clarity the day shortly after he'd turned fifteen and finally dragged the truth of the Black Fox out of a highly reluctant Agasa- confirming his father's other occupation besides that of best-selling mystery author. The questioning had been prompted by the discovery of a dust-covered, moth-eaten black fox stuffed animal buried behind some equally dust-laden books in the library that Shinichi had accidentally bumped when trying to grab _The Hound of the Baskervilles _off of the shelf. At first he'd asked his parents about it, and they'd invented the fairy tale of a thief 'uncle' who'd tragically died but must have left the animal behind for some reason. Then he had decided to ask Agasa, wearing the professor down until the older man finally confirmed that, yes, Shinichi's gut had been correct and his parents were lying to him.

_Well, yes...your father was the Black Fox. But please don't tell him I told you that! He'd never forgive me. _

_Now that I think about it, he _would_ never tell me why he retired so suddenly- or even why he started stealing to begin with. I always thought his friend's death played a big part in him stopping but who knows? All I know for certain is that Kuroba Toichi consulted your father about some rather nasty men in black a few days before his death who wanted him to steal something._

"Are you even listening to me? You're spacing out again! If you want me to keep helping you then you need to pay attention!"

Agasa's sharp, harsh tone snapped Shinichi back to reality as he ceased staring out of the window and refocused his mental energy on the task at hand. He'd never asked Agasa to help, but all of the gadgets that he'd come up with had proved to be highly valuable at different times and having an assistant lurking in the background had saved his skin more than once, especially when he had just been learning the tricks of the thieving trade.

A few minutes later, they slowed to a crawl alongside the police station while Shinichi grabbed his hook attachment for his multipurpose gun while smirking broadly underneath his mask, snapped it into place and used it to shoot the neatly gift-wrapped subject of the previous week's theft right onto the doorstep of the police's headquarters before they sped off towards the destination of their next theft.

* * *

The next morning...

* * *

"Damn it! I slept through most of _another _Black Fox robbery! That stupid thief..."

Kogakure Shinda- or rather, Hattori Heiji forced to assume that alias through a quirk of fate- was so caught up in his rapidly mounting frustration at missing out on the previous evening's action (complete with a rather hard kick using the back of his heel to the well-worn leg of the aged wooden chair he was currently sitting on) that he failed to notice the slightly sheepish, apologetic look that cast itself over Agasa's features for a few moments before the older man recovered and lightly shoved the large box of cereal currently between them on the table towards Heiji so he could reach it. "Well, it doesn't sound like you missed too much. And he was as invisible as always, or so they're saying on the news." _Although you were supposed to have slept through it all...I really hope you're not developing a resistance to the sedative, but it wouldn't surprise me if you were even though I try to be very sparing about actually _using_ it..._

The shrunken meitantei's response was a glare that would have frozen most anyone dead in their tracks in spite of its being issued by a childlike face. Agasa had grown used to the dark look, though- the Black Fox was a very touchy subject for Heiji that Agasa really wished he could straighten a few misconceptions on. "The hell I didn't miss something! Every minute that I'm asleep is a minute that hints or clues about that guy get stomped on or overlooked by detectives in a hurry at the scenes."

Heiji was absolutely dead set on the Black Fox being male, though his reasoning of 'a girl thief would try and attract attention to herself' seemed rather illogical, misogynistic and horribly presumptuous to the professor, especially since Heiji was making the assumption about Black Fox's gender without any hard evidence (and Agasa knew that he would have felt that way even if he _didn't_ know the Fox's true identity.)

Heiji was _also_ thoroughly convinced, although he wouldn't ever explain why, that the Black Fox was working for the same mysterious, black-jacketed men who had suddenly blindsided him in an Osakan warehouse about six months ago during a bizarre murder investigation he'd been called to assist with. The pair had knocked him out before force-feeding the meitantei a pill that irrevocably changed his life.

Heiji had never talked much about the details surrounding his strange shrinking beyond that, but Agasa knew that it was probably no picnic at times for a seventeen year old to be stuck in the body of a six to seven year old child with all of the physical limitations that it entailed (especially one as impatient and hot-blooded as Heiji became.) Plus- as Heiji had learned the hard way to his deep and continuing ire since he'd been unwillingly shrunk- no police offer took the deductions of such a young kid seriously.

_I'm sorry to impose on you like this, but it would be far too dangerous to take him with me and his appearance is so unique that it's likely best for him to stay as far away from Osaka as possible so the risk of recognition is minimized..._

Agasa had initially been baffled when Miyano Shiho had shown up at his doorstep in the middle of the night with a young boy bundled in teenager's clothing. His puzzlement had quickly turned to shock when his former pupil had then relayed the news that the 'boy' was really closer to sixteen or seventeen years old, an apparent survivor against almost unfathomable odds of a deadly poison that had somehow shrunk him instead of killing him.

An experimental poison that she had been forced to develop, though Shiho hadn't been willing to go into any more detail about where she was living or who her employers had been. The younger scientist hadn't even been sure if he would survive through the night thanks to the intended consequence of what he'd ingested, and the shock of his survival had been doubled the next morning when it had quickly become apparent that whatever the stuff had done to the meitantei's body, his mind hadn't been affected in the least.

For the past six months, Heiji had tried to track down the men responsible for shrinking him through developing Agasa's reputation as a great and accurate detective. This was accomplished using a combination of advance planning before heading to the scenes and a set of coded signals that the pair had developed so that Heiji could point Agasa towards evidence in crime scenes or what he needed to say to bring the truth to light.

Of course, the strange partnership was not without its rocky patches- the shrunken meitantei was ridiculously stubborn when he wanted to be and he was also capable of expertly wielding a broom like a rather nasty katana when he wanted to, as the shins of more than a few criminals could painfully testify to. Agasa hoped to keep putting off the development of the 'super-strength katana' disguised as a kid's wooden bokken Heiji wanted him to create so badly; the thought of the property damage that could potentially ensue caused tiny acidic butterflies to flit about in the professor's stomach when he reflected on it.

"Oh, it's almost time for you to go put on your makeup. The bus will be here in half an hour." Agasa had decided to change the subject and knew that he'd been successful when Heiji made a rather disgusted face before heading off to the bathroom where his stash of cheap makeup was hidden, grumbling under his breath all the while like he did every morning.

Heiji's fairly dark skin made him stick out like a sore thumb, and so aside from assuming the moniker of Kogakure Shinda he'd decided to take the additional precaution of wearing makeup to lighten the skin that he couldn't cover using year-round jeans, long T-shirts and tennis shoes. The process took him about ten minutes to accomplish and was usually accompanied by the air around the bathroom taking on a slightly blue tint thanks to a profanity-laced rant about 'damn stupid girl makeup!' while he was in the process of the application.

Twenty minutes later, Heiji slumped down gratefully into his usual seat, the very back leftmost seat, where he put his backpack on the seat next to him to avoid having to sit next to anyone and make small talk with any of the other kids. What could he actually _talk _about with a bunch of six to seven year olds, anyhow? He looked around before carefully pulling out an Ellery Queen book from his book bag, then covering it with a random large-print children's manga that he kept in his backpack for the exact purpose it was currently serving. He had just begun trying to figure out the first of the cases when he felt his book bag crash to his feet.

"Sorry, didn't mean to have your bag fall like that Kogakure, but I have to sit here. All the other seats are taken."

Heiji narrowed his eyes slightly, resentful of the interruption of his Ellery Queen reading, as his gaze met that of his newest classmate. "Whatever." Forcing himself into a neutral tone, Heiji reluctantly moved over a bit so that- oh yeah, his name was Ookami- could sit next to him. "I just want to read quietly till we get to school, OK?"

"OK." Kaito cocked an eyebrow as he slid into the seat. _Why are you hiding an Ellery Queen book under a manga? _Kaito had just been trying to think of how he could ask the question without tipping his hand too badly when he noticed soft crying coming from the seat next to him, the tears coming from a little brown-haired girl wearing pigtails and a pastel pink dress with matching shoes. "Um, what's wrong? Are you OK?"

"I-I'll be OK this afternoon when he's back. I always worry about Bun when he's gone in the mornings," came the quavery reply as the girl tried to force a smile onto her face. "Bun is my bunny. Every morning when I go to feed him he's gone and I never know if he'll be back when I come home, even though he's shown up so far."

"Your bunny…is gone every morning?" Kaito blinked twice, not quite sure what to make of it, and then suddenly felt an equally interested, puzzled gaze directed towards the girl from over his shoulder.

"And it shows up all dirty every afternoon? Is it maybe getting out of the cage at night or something?" Half of the bus that wasn't engaged in conversation or teasing actually turned and stared at the seat that Kaito and Heiji were sharing, a shocked "Kogakure actually spoke!" floating above the din before the short collective attention span returned to previous activities.

"No. That's what worries me. Bun is in a locked cage, and he hasn't chewed the wires or anything- I checked. Mom and Dad don't believe me that he's gone every morning either."

"Oh Taniwa-chan, why didn't you say something earlier?" Ayumi called from two seats up. "I bet we can figure it out after school today! Kihagi is very smart and he can help us!"

"Y-you and your friends would really help me Ayumi-chan? Maybe I could call Mom and ask her if I can have friends over for a couple of hours."

"Uhh, sure. Why not?" _It'll actually be a nice break from murders now that I think about it… _


	13. Chapter 13

Ugh; real life for the loss. Enjoy! And thanks to Silver Cateyes for jump-starting the bunnies.

* * *

"See? Bun's done it again! His pretty white coat is all dirty and I just gave him a bath last night!" Taniwa Yuki looked with disgust at the medium-sized metal cage- or rather at its contents, a small dirt-streaked white rabbit with black-tipped ears and paws- before letting out a huffy sigh that was packed with irritation. "I'm so tired of getting in trouble with Mom because he keeps getting dirty and then she thinks that I'm lying when I tell her I gave him a bath the day before."

"How many days now has he disappeared in the mornings like you told us about on the bus?" Kaito was somewhat surprised to not only hear the normally disinterested-seeming Shinda ask the question, but also to see the other boy actually down on his hands and knees investigating the area around the rabbit's cage with an unusually sharp, inquisitive expression that was rather out of place on a six to seven year old child's face. Kaito found himself puzzling over it briefly before Yuki began speaking, her voice refocusing his attention on the case at hand.

"Umm..." The pigtailed girl looked down at her hands and began counting off using her fingers, then nodded to herself and smiled after she'd seemingly confirmed the number to herself. "Fourteen days, so two weeks. Although there _was_ that one day last week that he wasn't gone..."

"What day was that, Taniwa-chan? I bet it's probably going to be a good clue!" Ayumi had a notepad out and was eagerly writing in a large, somewhat messy hand that made Kaito groan internally at the thought of having to actually attempt translation of the hurried scrawl later. _And I thought _my _writing was bad..._

"The morning that the big yellow bulldozer came and tore that old abandoned house and patch of woods across the street down. I don't remember exactly which day it was though, sorry."

"This cage has been moved and then put back later very recently. More than once." Shinda's firm, confident tone as he continued to examine the area around the rabbit's cage caused Kaito to once again wonder about Agasa-hakase's mysterious house guest. Almost as if Shinda suddenly realized that he sounded suspicious, the other boy half-jumped back up and added brightly "This grass looks really beat up all around the bottom of the cage, like it's been moved around a lot." The rather forced, innocent-sounding inflection within Shinda's voice only caused Kaito to make a mental note to try and do some more thorough, but discreet poking around at his new neighbor's the next time an opportunity presented itself. He was formulating a few different ideas to get himself sent over to the professor's house on some sort of errand when his concentration was broken.

"Yeah, I always move his cage over closer to the water hose when I give him a bath. But Bun's _cage_ doesn't move when he disappears, just Bun." Yuki pointed to the end of a green hose that was located about twenty feet from the cage.

"Is the dirt that's on him wet? Or is it dry?" Kaito wasn't quite sure where to begin the investigation, but he felt that trying to figure out the distance that the rabbit was traveling- as well as trying to gather a list of places the rabbit was likely being taken to- was probably the best way to go. Once they uncovered that information, they could hopefully begin developing a suspect pool and hopefully eventually figure out why the rabbit was disappearing every morning only to be returned covered in dirt.

"Oh, the dirt is always still a little bit wet. That's the reason why I have to give him a bath. If it was dry I could just brush him and be all done."

_So wherever the rabbit is being taken, it's being taken a place that's got wet mud or wet dirt. No telling exactly what's going on and why he's being taken without having a better idea of where exactly he's being taken to though. Although that day he _didn't_ go missing is rather interesting. Maybe we should-_

"We should probably go check out that field across the street!" exclaimed Shinda, causing the rest of the group to look at him with puzzled expressions. "Well, think about it. Taniwa said that the one day Bun didn't go missing was when they did work over there, right? So maybe her bunny is being taken over to that field for some reason."

"That's a good idea, Kogakure-kun. Let's go over there and check it out," replied Mitsuhiko with a nod and eager wave of his hand, encouraging the others to follow him as he approached the two-lane street they would need to cross and began to watch for approaching cards.

_Interesting. And more than a little strange that he thought of that so quickly._ Kaito studied Shinda's back with slightly narrowed eyes as he walked to the sidewalk's edge with the group. _This kid Kogakure Shinda definitely bears further investigation. After we figure out whatever is going on with this girl's rabbit and his vanishing act, that is..._

* * *

"Kuroba placed himself on long-term independent study and left town to work on a case?"

Nakamori Aoko blinked and found her attention drawn away from the text message she was in the middle of preparing to send to Kaito's phone, her eyes meeting a pair of inquisitive golden-toned hazel ones as she looked up from her phone and first took in the perfectly tailored three-piece suit, then the face that belonged to the source of the well-cultured male voice in front of her desk.

"Yeah. He left in a big hurry for some case up north last week that he won't talk to me about. That's the reason why he hasn't been in class lately, Saguru-kun." Aoko was a little wary of revealing too much to her and Kaito's half-British classmate. She wasn't quite sure whether Kaito would want Hakuba Saguru knowing what he was up to or where he was even if there _was_a strange sort of rivalry-laced, highly competitive friendship between the two meitantei. Well, when they weren't busy trying to out-deduct each other at crime scenes or arguing heatedly regarding the subject of the reemergence of a certain secretive thief who always returned whatever he stole, both trying to convince the other that _thier_ theory on the Black Fox's reemergence was the correct one and frequently irritating the teacher because of their tendency to conduct said debates in the middle of class unless someone directed the pair's attention back to schoolwork.

"I see. Well, I suppose it will at least be pleasantly quiet around here without his juvenile pranks constantly interrupting things." Saguru turned around and strode back to his desk, settling in for the rest of the class break with a cup of tea and a a thick case file he'd compiled over the last seven months detailing the Fox's exploits. Saguru never missed an opportunity to take a jab at Kaito and those jabs were invariably returned in one form or another by Kaito, including the occasional brilliantly executed prank that usually resulted in the two meintantei not speaking to each other for a minimum of a week.

_Yeah. And you two not debating constantly about whether the Black Fox is the original Black Fox who's decided to unretire or someone new that's taken over the name will also help, _mused Aoko dryly as she finished her text message and sent it with a firm press of her cell phone's button. Kaito had believed from the beginning of the robberies that the Black Fox was the same person it had been years ago while Saguru had held fast from the time of his arrival in Japan six months ago to it being someone else that had assumed the role. Her father had confided in her a couple of months ago that, quite simply, he wasn't sure which theory to believe and that waffling on his part had only served to increase the in-class interruptions, usually started by Kaito in an attempt to get Saguru in trouble with whichever sensei was currently teaching their class.

"Aoko-san, isn't your father the head of Hound? Or rather, the Black Fox Task Force," inquired Saguru in a mild tone. "Surely he must have developed _some _suspects by this point in time. Although perhaps with having to keep Kuroba in line most of the time during his investigations he hasn't had the chance yet, hmm?" The meitantei sipped tea from his ever-present porcelain cup, something he insisted on bringing with him to school every day.

"Yeah, Dad is in charge of the Black Fox task force, as you know. And boy is he ever getting tired of that guy running around," she muttered quietly as she turned her attention back to her phone and waited for Kaito's reply. "It's so strange how they've never even been able to catch the Black Fox on even so much as a single security camera after all this time..."

"It's not really _that _odd when you think about how carefully everything is orchestrated by the thief. The Black Fox seems to plan the robberies and later returning of items out with an excruciating amount of detail. Mixed with a rather healthy dose of moxy, of course." Saguru was, like Kaito, always careful to avoid using a 'he' or 'she' pronoun in order to avoid even subconsciously biasing himself, though he did feel that the Black Fox was most likely male- one of the few points regarding the thief that Saguru and Kaito were in agreement on. The other major dovetailing was their shared belief that the Black Fox was most likely not performing their thefts for any sort of monetary gain, though that 'fact' was admittedly little more than a gut hunch on both their parts. Of course, that particular theory _was_ lent no small measure of credence by the fact that the Black Fox always eventually returned what they stole.

"I guess you're right. But it really makes you wonder why he's going to all the trouble when all he does it give the items back later. Well, in a manner of speaking. Those 'presents' of his that he leaves on the doorstep of headquarters..."

"Well, there are a few reasons that could lay behind the thief returning the presents in that manner. But I suppose you already talk about the Black Fox enough with your father." Saguru flipped to a page in the files he was perusing before blinking, appearing to have suddenly remembered something. "Where's Kuroba working on that case at, Aoko-san? There's something I need to discuss with him."

* * *

"So, Agasa-hakase. You and I are going to have a chat about that kid you've been trying to hide."

Agasa sighed internally. He had hoped to put off this conversation, but should have known better. Shinichi had been very upset when his voice changer had gone missing, fearing that he'd left it behind at a robbery scene or something of that nature. Deciding to use the cover story that he and Shiho had concocted while Heiji had lain with a deep fever in his guest bedroom, he opened in what he hoped was a neutral tone that would help dissuade Shinichi's suspicion. "There's nothing to tell, really. He's the child of a rather distant relative who's staying with me for a while."

"So why all the secrecy? You were pretty upset when Ran and I found his shoes at your back door, and you've never brought him up in conversation a single time."

"Well, I didn't think you'd be interested since you're so busy with...your job." Agasa stuck to the rule that they'd established back when Shinichi had first decided to unretire the mantle- No references to his larcenous occupation other than that he had a 'job' outside of the Den. "Besides, he might get underfoot." Agasa knew that Shinichi was plenty intelligent enough to pick up on the implication. "And while we're on the subject of children...Bringing that boy Ookami Kihagi and letting him stay with you is rather risky, don't you think?"

The question had the effect Agasa had been hoping for, namely shifting Shinichi away from inquiring about Hattori Heiji. And Agasa was also genuinely curious about why Shinichi had decided to let a child stay with him while his exploits as the Black Fox kept him busy and in need of as little interference as possible.

"Ran insisted on bringing him back with us when we found him at Tropical Land," replied Shinichi in a tone that was slightly tinged with wariness. "And there's no way that a kid could stay at Mouri-ojisan's since Ran is at school all day and Mouri is either at a pachinko parlor or in a bar trying to get some clients for his agency."

"I see. Speaking of the detective agency, when are you going to see Ran next? I may actually have a client for him."

"Well she's coming over tonight like she does every week to cook for Kihagi and I. I'll pass on the message, although why you would want to send someone to Mouri of all people is beyond me." Shinichi shook his head. "What's the case, anyhow?"

"A man who disappeared over twenty years ago- the client's father. Now that the old house that they used to live in is being torn down she apparently wants to make peace with what happened and have an investigation performed at the scene." _And I'm hoping that Heiji will be able to start building Mouri's reputation thorough solving the case. However Heiji will manage to work that one out..._


	14. Chapter 14

Feels very nice to be getting back into the swing of things somewhat. Thanks to all of my reviewers and readers! Also, reference is made to a koseki; it's basically an offical registry of all the marriages, births, deaths, etc. in a particular region. The regional koseki are sent to Tokyo for an annual census.

* * *

"Ran."

"Yes, Shinichi?"

"Your dad's…_humming_." _And _also_ completely sober, newly shaven and _not_ camped out over at the pachinko parlor like he usually is most of the day on Wednesdays, _Shinichi tacked on mentally afterward because he didn't want to risk a nasty punch or kick from an angered Ran. He continued to watch Mouri Kogoro walk around and carefully sort items onto shelves in the first attempt at actually really _cleaning_ his office that Shinichi had ever seen the tantei engage in, humming an Okino Yoko ballad loudly while he worked to top off the strange scene and managing to disconcert Shinichi more than slightly in the process.

"Oh, that" Ran replied with a laugh and shake of her head as she dusted a small coffee table and gestured towards Kogoro with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Apparently Dad got a call from a client today thanks to a referral from Agasa-hakase, so he's all excited and wants to get the place straightened up before they arrive."

"Damn right I'm happy! The old man's finally sent me an _actual_, _paying_ client for once!" Kogoro suddenly paused from his rearranging of the crime scene procedure manuals scattered about his office's bookshelves and rubbed his chin thoughtfully while glancing at the ceiling. "Although honestly I don't usually like working such an old missing persons case; probably not going to have much luck with a woman- well, girl- that vanished over twenty years ago now. It'll be one hell of a cold trail if I can even _begin_ to find anything, but money's money."

"Twenty years ago? That's an awfully long time," began Shinichi as he began to help Ran move the wooden table so she could sweep underneath it. "Why the sudden interest from your client after all this time?"

"Ah, that's because she's actually the sister of the girl that vanished. I guess they tore down the house that the family was living at the time her sister disappeared sometime last week and it got her wondering again about what actually happened." Kogoro pulled out what appeared to be a thin file folder and began looking through it and continued on. "The case was never solved because the police never really found any solid leads according to her. They tagged the girl as a runaway in the end after deciding that they were getting nowhere, but the sister doesn't think that's the case."

"Oh yeah! I nearly forgot after we got busy cleaning. Shinichi, where's Kihagi at? I got Dad and I some anmitsu for a treat; there's some in that bag for you and Kihagi too." Ran indicated a bag sitting by the shoe rack that bore a nearby sweet shop's logo on it.

"Eh, he's gone to hang out with some of his new friends from school for a couple of hours- don't worry, I made sure that his new cell phone was with him and fully charged," added Shinichi quickly once he caught sight of Ran's somewhat worried look. "He's going to catch the bus back when he's done. I'll bring the bag back with me."

"Ran told me all about that kid Ookami Kihagi and the shape he was in when you found him at tropical Land by the way," commented Kogoro gruffly as he vented a sudden bout of anger by throwing a wooden knickknack at the shelf. "Where the hell are his parents at? I'd like to give them both a piece of my mind for letting him live like that."

"I've never really asked him much about them- every time I try and bring it up with him he finds a way to change the subject. I figure he'll open up about it when and if he's ready to." Shinichi helped Ran finish moving the table back into place. "At least he's got a safe place to stay now."

"A _safe place_, Kudo? _Your _house?" Kogoro faced Shinichi while he finished the last of the shelf arranging, placing more than a few odds and ends incorrectly due to that. "Hah! Between that damn booby-trapped house of yours and Agasa-hakase's exploding experiments down the street that kid is probably going to end up in a full-body cast before the week is out-"

"For the _last_ time that statue on the bookcase that fell on you was _not _rigged as a trap-"

The doorbell to the office trilled, interrupting the irritated Shinichi before he could finish his sentence. Ran went up to the front of the office, answered the door and escorted a brown-haired woman who looked to be in her mid to late twenties back into the main room of the agency a couple of minutes later.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mouri-kun," began the woman with a polite bow. "I'm Akiyama Fujiko, the person that Agasa-hakase referred to you."

"I was happy to take the case once Agasa-hakase told me your story, Akiyama-san." Kogoro took out a note pad and settled in to the room's couch, sitting across from Fujiko who was in the love seat on the opposite side. "I'd like to review the facts we discussed over the phone to make sure that they're correct before we head over to where your house was located if you don't mind."

"Of course, although everything's so hard to recall now that I'm really trying to think back to it." She sighed and shook her head, but the gesture almost seemed more tinged with frustration than sadness. "I was only five the day Hisako went outside to play while I was ill and never came back…I almost feel guilty for not being able to remember her outside of photographs."

"Yeah, that's right- I remember you mentioning that you were sick with the flu at the time, at least according to your parents. Both of your parents were at home on that evening too, right?" Kogoro was frantically writing as he spoke.

"Yes they were. They both went outside and searched for her after it got well past dark and she still hadn't come in from playing the yard. Apparently when Mom hadn't come to check up on me in a while I crawled out of bed and went looking for her. It might actually be best if you were to call them before we leave-we might actually be able to meet them at where the house used to be."

"That was another thing I wanted to ask you about. You mentioned that your parents moved you about six months after she disappeared. Did they ever sell or rent out that old house?"

"Oh, no. At least I don't believe they ever did. Some people in the neighborhood said that my sister's ghost was haunting the grounds around the house and no one wanted to buy it or even live in it. My parents finally sold off the land to some developers a few months ago, and they tore the house down last week. I guess knowing that the house got torn down really got me wondering just what had happened, although I don't really recall very much at all about Hisako."

"Did you ever ask your parents about it, or did they ever speak about it?"

"I asked a lot, especially when I was little. They always said that they had no idea what had happened. And they especially avoided the subject once we moved."

"Alright. Well, let's go ahead and get going over to where your house used to be. Hopefully we'll be able to find at least something even if they've torn the house down now."

* * *

"This case is almost a week old now and you're telling me you still don't have any leads?" Nakamori Ginzo was finding it increasingly strange that any and all of the leads regarding the murder of whoever had been left at the scene of the Black Fox's latest robbery seemed to all be shrouded in some kind of impenetrable black fog. It was as if they were chasing a phantom- any identification of the victim invariably led to a false name and address or to a name that didn't exist anywhere at all. Of course, he was having his team try to figure out whether the murder was connected to the robbery that his task force was assigned to, but that was proving to be very difficult since neither they or the homicide team that was working the murder seemed to be able to pin down the victim's identity.

"The victim is a very slippery customer unfortunately, as you know. The really odd part is that he doesn't seem to be registered in any of the koseki anywhere, regardless of what names we're eventually connecting with the guy. It's like he's a ghost, and the homicide division seems to be having the same lack of luck." This was very strange, and something that caused Ginzo to wonder just what they were getting themselves into. If someone didn't appear on any of the koseki anywhere in Japan, that effectively meant that that person didn't legally even exist as far as Japan was concerned.

"So is this person perhaps a foreigner, or someone that was never registered in a koseki?"

"That's the next route that we're- well, the homicide detectives in charge of the case are pursuing, sir. It seems to be the only explanation left at this point. And whoever this guy turns out to be, it's pretty apparent that he's not the Black Fox judging by what we found on the doorstep this morning." The officer who was meeting with his keibu couldn't help but glance over at the gift-wrapped painting that the Black Fox had left on their doorstep and suppress a snicker in spite of himself.

"Yeah, I figured that out. Dammit, what the hell was this dead guy doing there? And how did he manage to not only get into that area, but get himself killed by someone ELSE that managed to get in there? Where the hell were the two patrolmen who were supposed to be watching the scene when the murder happened? It was a cordoned-off crime scene that no one should have been able to get into or out of."

"Apparently, they both heard someone screaming for help down the hallway and so they went to assist. By the time they got to where the yelling was coming from, it had stopped and there was no one there and nothing out of the ordinary that they could see. Then they returned to their stations and saw the body inside of the cordoned off crime scene."

"So they were probably gone for at most what, five minutes? But they didn't see or hear anything except for the screaming that made them leave their posts." Ginzo rubbed his temples. "Now remind me again why _both_ of them had to leave. One or the other of them could have gone, but they should have known better than to both leave at the same time."

"That's being looked into." The officer got up from his chair to begin to exit the room. "It doesn't seem to have been anything the Black Fox set up, either, unless he's changed his M.O. of always leaving one of those stuffed animals behind."

"Hmph, you didn't need to tell me that. No, a murder doesn't seem like his style at all-especially with it taking place at the scene of one of his robberies. That bastard likes staying hidden in the shadows and not drawing attention to himself unless he _wants_ the attention. Goddamn presents..."

"That's also the opinion of the homicide division that's working the murder case, although there's no hard evidence one way or the other yet. Maybe the Black Fox returned to the scene of the crime and the guy saw him or something like that, so Black Fox felt that he had to silence him."

"I doubt that- the guy's been too careful to even let himself be seen on a security camera, I highly doubt that he would not only return to the scene of one of his robberies so soon but also go without a mask or something to hide his identity." Ginzo pulled out a notebook. "Who were the two that were working the case again- Satou-keiji and Takagi-keiji, right? I know their captain Megure-keibu, I think I'll give him a call and see how they're progressing." Ginzo picked up the phone as the Hound task force member left the room.


	15. Chapter 15

"I understand where you're coming from, but your daughter hired me to find out what happened to her sister and I intend to do just that. Which is why we need to be able to get onto the property where your old house was located, with your permission of course."

_Sounds like Mouri-ojisan is here. Wait a minute, what's he talking about? Someone actually HIRED the guy?_ Kaito walked towards the sound of the older man's voice, the rest of his classmates walking behind him and chatting excitedly amongst themselves except for Shinda, who was trailing along behind the rest of the group slightly and looking around with that same focused expression Kaito had noticed earlier.

"Where are we going, Ookami-kun? The torn down house is the other way." Ayumi pointed back towards the scattered remains of the large demolished house with her thumb.

_Oh, right. She's talking to me. I really start needing to remember that I'm Ookami Kihagi now…_"Well, I was thinking," Kaito explained as he turned his head slightly towards her. "The rabbit was disappearing before the house got knocked down, right? And it's always been covered in fresh, wet dirt when she comes home. I don't think we need to be looking in the house; I think we should try and find-"

"Holes!" cried Genta triumphantly while pumping his fist in the air. "The bunny is digging holes in the ground here, right? Let's go and try to find 'em!"

"Yeah, we should look for them. But the real question is who's taking the rabbit and putting it back." After quickening his pace to catch up with the rest of the group, Shinda scowled slightly at the looks he was getting and adjusted the backwards-facing cap on his head slightly. "A rabbit can't open and close a cage by itself- at least not one with a lock like that- so someone's taking it out in the morning and then putting it back later."

Kaito winced slightly. _My ears! I wish Shinda would quit bothering to try and hide that Osaka-ben- it's so completely obvious. He's absolutely right about the rabbit, though_. "Maybe if we find the holes we can figure out what they want to use the rabbit to dig for. And _why_ they're using a rabbit, too; you'd think a shovel would be quicker."

"Oh, hi Kihagi. I didn't know that this was where you were coming to play with your friends this afternoon." As the group finished approaching where Kogoro's voice had come from Kaito was surprised to see Shinichi appear, walking over to them and waving. "You guys probably shouldn't be poking around here, though. It's dangerous. There are a lot of holes around the trees, and they're pretty deep even though they're small."

"We're helping our friend solve a mystery here, Shinichi-niisan." So whatever Mouri-ojisan is looking into involves this old house, too? And there are holes around the trees on this property?

"Really? What sort of mystery?" Shinichi squatted down and pointed in the general direction of Kogoro and Ran before examining one of the holes he'd pointed to a little more closely. "That guy's after a missing girl, well if he can get her parents to let us search here; it's still technically their property. I don't know why I let Ran talk me into this…"

"It's a disappearing rabbit." Shinda spun his cap with a single hand as he spoke so that the brim was facing forward. "Every morning, it's gone. Every afternoon, it's back but covered in wet dirt."

"Yeah. Someone is taking Ayumi-chan's friend's bunny and having it dig holes here, we think." Mitsuhiko pointed to the hole that Shinichi was examining. "Looks like whoever it is has been busy."

"That's interesting. I didn't think you could actually train a rabbit to dig like that," the other boy commented as he stood back up and went over to Kogoro. "Hey, these kids found something interesting-"

"Why are you letting a bunch of kids poke around here? They could fall and- wait a minute, is that Agasa-hakase, that crazy neighbor of yours who's walking this way? What's he doing here?"

"Oh, when I mentioned that you'd asked Ran and I to help you he wanted to come. Something about needing to bring Shinda a piece of homework he'd left, I think."

"Well, as long as he let me actually investigate and stays out of the way I guess it's not a big deal." This was followed by Kogoro leveling a glare at the group of kids that was by Shinichi. "You bunch stay out of the way, too. Don't want one of your breaking your leg or something."

"Hey Kogakure-san, did you forget your homework? I can give you a copy if you need it." Ayumi then turned to where Shinda had been standing only to be greeted with an empty space. "Oh, where did he go off to?"

"Eh, I dunno if you should really bother with that guy Ayumi-chan. He's given everybody the cold shoulder since day one." Mitsuhiko indicated Shinda with his thumb. "Besides, it looks like he's getting it from that ojisan there."

_Kogakure Shinda...I have this feeling I can't shake that there's something way more going on with him than just his being antisocial. The makeup, both him and Agasa-hakase trying to keep the fact that he's even there a secret, his trying to hide that Ellery Queen book on the bus...but I better focus on the mystery at hand. What was it I wanted to ask Yuki about again? Oh yeah, that was it. _"Hey Taniwa-san, do you maybe have an older brother or sister that wakes up to go to school before you?"

"Yeah! Osawa-niichan gets up a couple hours before I do. How did you know, Kogakure-san?"

_That's exactly what I thought._"Did you ask your brother if he's taking your bunny to go dig with?"

"Or how about if he's put together a fence with some wires and small fence posts that can be dug up later anytime recently?" chimed in Shinda suddenly, who was returning from his talk with the Professor with a strange look on his face that Kaito could only describe as...well, scheming. "Mouri-ojisan over there found some smaller holes that look like they might have been places for a fence." He indicated Kogoro, who looked like he was sitting down on the other side of the tree in a strangely motionless pose.

"Eh, Mouri-ojisan? Are you alright? You just slumped down all of a sudden-" Shinichi walked over to where the detective was sitting but was quickly interrupted by the tantei.

"I'M FINE! Err, that is, this always happens to me when I get a piece of the puzzle put into place. Stay back there, please, all of you. You'll disturb evidence otherwise."

_What's going on here? Something just doesn't feel right...his voice sounds a little off to me for some reason. _Kaito had only ever heard the older man speka during the time Kogoro had taken him, Ran and Shinichi to the mall but there was something almost...well, _artificial _about his voice currently to Kaito's well-honed ear. _It almost sounds like there's another voice just before and after he starts talking, too. _No one else seemed to notice it, but Kaito was fairly certain that his ear wasn't letting him down. _And where'd that kid Shinda get off to? He just vanished after mentioning that Mouri-ojisan had something to say..._

"So, your name is Yuki, correct little girl? You're the one that owns the rabbit that keeps vanishing every morning?"

"Y-yes sir Mouri-ojisan. He always disappears and then when I come home from school he's back in his cage but all covered with fresh slightly wet dirt."

"I see. Do you know where rabbits normally make their homes at, Yuki?"

"Oh, they dig in the ground and make holes to live in!" cried Ayumi, who quickly covered her mouth and blushed once she realized her interruption.

"That's right! I remember now, they're called burrs or something like that, right?"

"They're called burrows, Taniwa-san. But what does that have to do with anything-" Mitsuhiko's eyes suddenly grew wide. "All the holes around the trees...they're burrows that Bun has dug, right Mouri-ojisan?"

"Exactly. Someone is bringing Bun over here, setting him up in a small portable cage and having him dig holes around the trees here in the morning before Yuki leaves for school, and then they're returning Bun before Yuki finishes riding the bus home from your school."

"Well, why a rabbit though? And why around the trees?" asked Shinichi with a puzzled expression. "It makes sense, but it doesn't make sense if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, Dad," added Ran in a doubtful tone. "I agree with Shinichi. Or do you have other evidence besides those post holes you found and the holes around the trees?"

_Does no one else realize that he's not moving around behind that tree at all? _"Maybe the bunny is cause there's breakable stuff that a rabbit won't damage as easily as a shovel?" offered Kaito as he began to wonder more and more just what was going on with Mouri-ojisan.

"Possibly. I think that whoever's taking the rabbit is after a small X that should be somewhere under this tree." Kogoro's arm jerked upwards with an awkward motion that looked as unnatural as his voice sounded, at least to Kaito. _What's he talking about? _Kaito began to study the tree more closely until he realized that there was a skeleton of a kite in the uppermost branches. "If you come around here I think I've found what the rabbit borrowers were trying to get at. It's a sad story, though; I'm going to hate reporting my findings to my client, and I can understand why her parents didn't want her prying into what happened."

_Wait...a kite in a tree...and things hidden under that tree? The parents moving so soon after their daughter disappeared, too..._As he joined the rest of the group in walking around to where Mouri was, Kaito put the pieces together and realized just what had happened. _Yeah, no wonder the parents didn't want her trying to find out what had happened. _He then realized that Shinda was still missing. _Where the hell did that guy get off to, anyhow?_

"Right here," continued Kogoro as he awkwardly pointed to a small x in the ground that was next to him, "is what I suspect your brother was trying to find again. He probably saw the X in the ground and thought that it was buried treasure. I think it's someone's treasure, all right, but not necessarily one that has a monetary value given to it."

"So you've figured it out. Just as I feared when our daughter hired you." A light brown-haired woman who looked to be in her late forties to early fifties with her hair tied up in a neat bun approached the tree where Kogoro was sitting. "I guess all I can ask of you...is to please not tell our daughter the truth about her sister's disappearance."

"She was trying to get that kite down to cheer up her sick little sister, correct? Except that she didn't ask for or wait for her father to help her get her sister's kite down out of the tree, and a tragic accident occurred."

"Yes," replied the woman as she took out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes, moving her trim, frameless glasses upwards on her face slightly in the process. "She fell from the tree and broke her neck- she'd been dead for a while when we found her. That's why-why we moved so quickly, as quickly as we could get money together for a down payment. So that Fujiko would never stumble on her sister's grave site while she was playing and ask questions. We didn't want her to live with the guilt, even though she had no actual fault in Hisako's death. I came to plead with you in person to please not tell-"

"So she didn't run away from us after all." The group turned to see Fujiko walking towards the scene, tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. "I always thought...that she'd run away because she didn't...didn't love us any more. But she was there-here-all along."

"I hope you can forgive your father and I for not wanting you to know the truth. But I suppose it was long past time that you were able to handle it." Mother and daughter hugged as the older woman added "Hisako loved you very much. That was why she wanted to get your kite down out of the tree- to cheer you up because you were sick. She knew how much you loved that kite."

Twenty minutes later, the group was dispersing and Kaito fell in with Shinichi, Ran Agasa-hakase and Shinda to head home. "Hey, where's Mouri-ojisan?" He wanted to ask if anyone else had noticed that the tantei's lips hadn't been moving when he'd been talking, but he supposed that it would be better to keep that observation to himself for the time being. "You missed out, Kogakure-san. Mouri-ojisan got right to the truth like a detective on TV!"

"Eh, whatever." Kaito could tell, however, that underneath that veil of uncaring Shinda was exhibiting lurked a bit if smugness and perhaps a little fear as well. "I think he said he was gonna stay to help the family move that girl's bones to their new home."

"Oh, OK." _If Mouri-ojisan was the one that actually solved that case, I'll eat a deck of my trick cards. Maybe even two of them._


	16. Chapter 16

"You need to be much more careful doing what you did earlier in the future. Just because that voice modulator also hides your Osaka-ben in the process doesn't mean that someone won't be able to overhear you talking if they get too close to Mouri-san while you have him knocked out." Agasa quickly gave Heiji a pointed look before turning his eyes back to the road and added "That's not _really_ how the stun wristwatch is supposed to be used, either. It's meant to take out criminals when they're trying to flee, not incapacitate someone so that you can solve cases using their voice."

"Well, it worked out just fine in the end didn't it?" Heiji half-shrugged before tucking the modulator, which was disguised as a rather childish-looking, handcrafted good-luck trinket, into his shirt. "And Mouri-ojisan even played along perfectly after he woke up and took all the credit exactly like I was hoping he would, too. Besides, _you're_ the one who said he could get some cases that'll lead to the guys in black that shrunk me if I help build up his reputation so that more and more clients come to him." Heiji settled into the passenger seat and pulled his hat backwards. "Knockin' the guy out's also way easier than running around all over the place trying to make him figure out clues and hoping that he eventually catches on."

"It may be easier for you, but you also run a very large risk of getting caught in the process," replied Agasa wearily as he stopped at an intersection and waited for a green light. "What if Mouri-san was to suddenly wake up while you were in the middle of revealing a culprit, or what if someone was to walk up too close to him and realize that he was knocked out? Or that his voice while he was talking was really coming from a few feet away?"

"That's where you come in of course, Agasa-hakase" Heiji replied with a smug grin. "You'll have to keep people distracted while I'm workin' when it's needed," the meitantei continued as he cheerfully reloaded the stun wristwatch. "If Mouri-ojisan ever starts to wake up while I'm asking questions or solving the case I'll just give 'em another neckful of sleeping dart."

_I never should have designed a smaller version of that thing for him, but I had to return Shinichi's before he noticed it was missing, especially after the voice changer disaster. _Agasa sighed lightly as he continued to drive towards his home. _I may have created the first stun watch for Shinichi but he's far more judicious in its use…_Guards were much easier to get by when they were temporarily indisposed, after all, although Shinichi tried to be sparing with the device because he enjoyed the challenge of sneaking in and out of buildings without being seen or caught on camera, sometimes doing so right under the noses of the building's security team and the police forces. _I just know that Heiji will bring that bokken he wants made up again soon as well. _

"You know, I was rather surprised when you said that you were going to spend some time with your classmates after school today," began Agasa, hoping to change the subject away from gadgets and other related topics. "You've always been so reluctant to interact with the other children since you've started going to that elementary school."

"Well, it _was_ a mystery that needed solving, and I had to start acting like a little kid sometime I guess," Heiji replied gruffly as he pulled a folded newspaper section out of his pocket and began perusing it intently. "Plus some of those kids in my class were getting way too nosy because I _wasn't_ hanging around them and they've only gotten worse since that weird new kid Ookami Kihagi transferred in the week before last." He blinked and looked up from his paper, fixing Agasa with a focused look. "Speaking of that kid, that neighbor of yours who's my age – Kudo, right? Did he ever tell you exactly how and why Ookami started staying with him? Are the two of them related or something?" Heiji frowned as he continued studying the paper. "Something about the kid doesn't sit quite right with me; it's like he's trying _too_ hard too fit in with the rest of the class at times."

"I don't believe so," replied the older man with a shake of his head as he approached a four-way intersection and waited for his turn before turning left. "All Shinichi has ever said to me was that he and Ran found the boy in some rather dire straits back when the two of them went to Tropical Land on their annual trip- apparently Kihagi was unconscious in a somewhat remote area of the park and also burning up with a very bad fever."

"Unconscious and with a bad fever?" _No way…there can't _possibly_ be any way. It _has_ to just be a really, really weird coincidence. _Heiji found himself unable to resist asking the next question for some reason even as the logical part of him immediately dismissed it, however. "Kudo, uh, didn't mention whether the two of them happened to find Ookami in clothes that were several sizes too big for him, did he?"

"Oh, come now. You can't _possibly_ be thinking what I think that you're thinking about Ookami Kihagi," half-laughed Agasa as he turned the car into the driveway of his home. "I'm sure you remember everything Shiho-san told us about that apotoxin you were given and what it was _supposed_ to do instead of shrink you, Heiji- your survival was nothing short of a complete miracle. To think that another person could survive such long odds is a bit on the preposterous side. And no, Shinichi never mentioned anything along those lines when he discussed finding Kihagi." After both had exited the car Agasa locked the car and began heading up towards the front door. "What's in that paper that you're looking at?" he inquired as he realized that the paper Heiji had been intently studying was a newspaper that he'd apparently folded up and hidden in his jeans pocket.

"Eh, it's the crime section. I always try and see if something in it will interest me, or especially if anything seems like it might be tied to those guys in black. Looks like nothin' special but a few missing persons cases this week, though." The shrunken meitantei half-tossed the newspaper section to the older man as they both entered the house.

* * *

_Why did I become a tantei in the first place? That's a weird question, but thinking about it I guess it was Dad's death that started it. I watched all of the police and detectives working so hard on the case and I really wanted to help them figure out what had happened to him._

_To be honest, I never really bought that the explosion that killed him during his finale was _just_ a freak stage accident, even if that was what the police eventually said- you'd have to have known Dad to understand; he took risks during his shows, all right, but _never_ with his pyrotechnics like that. _

_After that was over, I started trying to help the police out with every crime that I possibly could..._

"Just where have you gone off to, Kuroba?" muttered Hakuba Saguru under his breath, at the same time rifling through different newspapers and finding no mention of any kind of case that would have probably caught the other meitantei's interest, much less one that would have caused him to so completely uproot his life and take off to somewhere in Japan as Aoko had said. Saguru found it especially strange that even Nakamori Aoko, one of the people that Kuroba Kaito was closest to, had no clue of where he actually was at the present time. _Is that deliberate on your part, Kuroba? What reason could you possibly have for not letting anyone know where exactly you're at right now?_

What had started as a want to assist (OK, mixed with a desire to try and upstage Kuroba by solving the case before him- Saguru had to be honest, at least with himself) the magician-meitantei with whatever large, complex case that he was apparently working on had rapidly become a strange rabbit hole that seemed to be getting, to quote a certain childhood book, curiouser and curiouser the more that the blonde entered into it and poked around. _Aoko-san also said that the very last place she actually _saw_ Kuroba was when the two of them went to Tropical Land and he left to go check into something related to the murder that he'd solved earlier that day, even though he's apparently been in regular contact with her via text messages since that day. _That was another interesting piece of the puzzle; Aoko had also told Saguru that Kaito had specifically asked to only communicate with him using text messages.

Watson suddenly filled Saguru's field of vision as he read due to her having landed on top of the newspaper reports he was studying, causing him to look up from his research and into the curious amber eyes of his hawk. "I've told you not to do that when I'm reading" he muttered darkly, which merely earned him a reproachful glare from the hawk before she hopped up and settled onto his shoulder. _Was it something in this case that caused you to take off so suddenly? Or was it perhaps something that you learned later on? _Saguru was absolutely determined to puzzle it out and show up at wherever the other boy was unannounced in order to catch him off guard, even if he could have caved in and merely texted the other meitantei and waited for a reply.

"Your usual evening tea and two local newspapers, Saguru-botchama" announced his assistant-slash-housekeeper Minawa Shiori as she placed the stated items on the table in front of him after carefully moving the paper that had been laying on the table out of the way, the crime sections neatly folded on top of the other sections.

"Thank you, Shiori. Anything interesting?"

"Not really, botchama, unless you count the little story about a private tantei named Mouri Kogoro solving a missing persons case that was over twenty years old on the third or fourth page of that one's crime section," she replied as she pointed to the paper on the right.

"Eh? Over twenty years old?" As Shiori exited the room, Saguru turned to the paper and found the story that Shiori had mentioned. _Hmm...I see, a tragic story but nothing really out of the- eh, what's this?_

Saguru immediately got up in a quick motion, causing Watson to lose her balance a little. As she reseated herself Saguru swiftly crossed over to the other side of the library and got out a large magnifying glass. _I'm probably just going out of my mind, and the picture is awfully fuzzy as well as small, but..._The blonde reseated himself and closely examined the group shot a photographer had taken of the detective who'd solved the case along with a little group of children that the caption deemed 'the detective's able young assistants who attend an elementary school near the sad scene.' Saguru studied one particular face in the photograph very closely through his lens, shaking his head but unable to quell a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach at the same time. _It would definitely explain the text-only contact._

One of those 'able young assistants' in the photograph looked completely, almost eerily like a shrunken, six to seven year old version of Kuroba Kaito, complete with the slightly superior smirk Saguru had seen him wear a time or two after solving a particularly difficult case. The other boy's behavior- the one with a cap almost completely pulled down over his head- interested Saguru as well, as did the fact that the boy was in long sleeves and long jeans on a balmy, somewhat humid July day, but his focus was on the messy dark-haired, dark-eyed boy.

_Hmm...No, Kuroba's much older than this child. What am I even thinking of? This can't possibly have any way of coming close to being right. _Yet he found himself immediately calling Nakamori Aoko, his gut still tugging him along somewhat unwillingly on its new, bizarre journey. When Aoko picked up the phone after Watson let out a screech, Saguru thought for a moment or two of how to even begin. "Aoko-san, I know this will sound like a very, very strange request. But do you have any photographs of Kuroba at all from when you were both children?"


	17. Chapter 17

"You just _have_ to help me find my father!"

After the bespectacled girl who'd entered Mouri's office earlier finished her pleading, Kaito looked up from the homework he'd been doing on the floor and studied her more closely before glancing over at Mouri Kogoro. _Well, at least the guy seems to be getting more cases since he solved that missing persons case last week, although I really _am_ wondering if he was the one that solved it. _Shinichi was actually the one who'd pointed out the fact that Mouri Kogoro had seemed...well, _unconscious_ when he'd solved the case as he'd been walking with to the bus stop on that day last week, and Kaito found himself wondering sometimes about the strange possibilities that it presented if that fact were true.

If he _had_ been knocked out, how was Mouri's voice imitated then? How and more importantly, _why_ had he been knocked out to solve the case? Who was behind it? Kaito also wasn't quite sure if the other boy's eyes had been fooling him or not, but Shinichi's powers of observation definitely weren't to be underestimated- as Kaito had to repeatedly remind himself whenever he called his mom or sent a quick text to Aoko on his phone. He'd almost been caught three times calling his mom, and Kaito had also given himself a mild heart attack two days ago when he'd gone to sort some of his laundry and realized that he'd left the phone unlocked on the living room couch.

"Look, ma'am, I appreciate your concerns but this really isn't a lot to go on. A betting ticket from a racetrack dated two weeks ago that you found in a trash bin is marginally helpful at best, I'm afraid." Kogoro gave the crumpled ticket that was laying on the table a disapproving glance. "There's no telling when exactly he put in in that bin or where he went from there."

"I know," she replied dejectedly. "But it's all I managed to find when I began asking around about him," she continued before standing up and beginning to pace back and forth in front of the couch she'd been seated on. "A clerk at a store remembered seeing someone that looked like him toss that ticket in to the trash. When I saw his name on it, I was overjoyed." She sighed and sat back down. "After he quit his job as a taxi driver and simply vanished last month I didn't know what to think. And this was my first real clue..."

"So you're from Yamagata originally, right Hirota-san? And your father went to Tokyo suddenly to take his new job?" Kogoro was frantically taking notes on unlined sheets of computer paper that he'd grabbed from the printer when his client had unexpectedly shown up at his door about ten minutes ago.

"Yes- it was very strange," the young woman who had introduced herself as Hirota Masami replied with a nod. "But he insisted on moving to Tokyo all by himself and that I stay in Yamagata and keep my job there. Everything was fine until last month when he suddenly vanished."

"Hey Kihagi, are you nearly done with your homework? We need to get going over to Shinichi's soon so that I can start my weekly cooking." Ran had approached Kaito from behind while he'd been focused on the conversation going on on the other side of the couch that he was sprawled out behind, so he leapt up a little bit in surprise.

_Bah, I was hoping to hear a little more about that case before we left. _"Almost, Ran-neesan. I only have three or four problems left, see?" offered Kaito brightly as he held up his nearly done paper. _Weird case, though._

"Alright, we'll leave after you're done then. Dad, I'm going over to Shinichi's to drop Kihagi off and cook once he's done with his homework. I'll be back in a while OK?"

* * *

"So, it sure seems like your dad's getting a lot more work these days," began Shinichi fifteen minutes later after Ran and Kaito had arrived at Shinichi's house. "Agasa-hakase mentioned that he'd been pretty busy this past week."

"Yeah," replied Ran happily as she headed into the kitchen and put on an apron, Shinichi following close behind and putting one on as well. "Dad's been busy, but he says that it's been mostly boring stuff so far. You know, helping people find cats and stuff like that. Although he had someone ask him to help find her missing father this morning, so hopefully he won't be as bored. He seemed pretty interested in the case. So did Kihagi, actually," she finished with a laugh. "He was doing his homework but he was listening to Dad and his client pretty closely." The sounds of chopping and cooking implements moving around began to come from the kitchen shortly after Ran finished her sentence.

_Gah. I need to quite letting myself get so wrapped up in investigations that I'm not paying any attention to what's going on around me. _Kaito's eyes narrowed as he let out an irritated huff. _And I also need to not be so obvious about it, apparently. _He then realized that his pencil had been worn down to a nub and went into the cupboard where pencils and other odds and ends were kept only to find a rather strange-looking pair of glasses sitting in the cupboard. They were comprised of a chunky-looking black frame and very thick lenses, and were oddly heavy as well. _What are these doing in here? Actually, more like _whose_ are these? Kudo doesn't wear glasses and I sure as heck don't. And they're definitely not Agasa-hakase's either- the lenses and frame are way more square._

"Whose are those? I've never seen you wear glasses before, Ookami." Kogakure Shinda's voice came from the doorway to Kaito's left, and he realized that Agasa-hakase had arrived along with his classmate. "Mouri Ran invited us over for dinner," Shinda explained in a bored tone as he pointed back over his shoulder with his thumb towards Agasa.

"Actually, I don't know whose they are. I just found them in a drawer," replied Kaito with a shrug before resuming his investigation of the glasses. _There's something about these glasses that just doesn't sit right with me..._

"Hey Ookami, lemme take a look at those would ya?" the other boy muttered after a few moments before he firmly tugged them out of Kaito's hand and began studying them intently.

"Hey Kogakure! Give those back!" _Rude little brat, aren't you? _Kaito was about ready to give Shinda a piece of his mind when the other boy put the glasses on and pushed on the side of them. _Why does he look so surprised all of a sudden? _"Uhh, are you alright?"

Shinda slowly pulled the glasses off of his face, frowning and with his mind clearly elsewhere until he seemed to suddenly remember that Kaito was standing right next to him. "Y-yeah, I'm fine. Everything just looked weird when I put the glasses on, that's all" he finished with a nervous, forced-sounding laugh before quickly exiting the room with the glasses still in his hand and a determined look on his face.

_What the hell was that about? Kogakure is one _seriously_ weird kid, that's for sure. _Kaito shook his head before deciding that his homework could wait and shutting the cupboard door. Shinda's reaction to the glasses was really making him wonder- as was Kogakure Shinda himself, actually, now that Kaito thought about it. _Why was Agasa-hakase so secretive about having him as a guest in the first place? Kudo had no idea that Agasa-hakase even had a kid staying with him until I went over there that day last week and spotted Kogakure walking into the kitchen. And what's with that makeup? He must wear it almost all of the time judging by what the others said about him never coming to class when it rains. _Kaito then took the same path out of the room that Shinda had while mulling over his questions, hoping that he'd be able to ask Shinda more about his strange reaction to the glasses.

"What are _these_ doin' _here_?" came Shinda's undisguised Osaka-ben in a low hiss as Kaito approached the hallway, where Agasa and Shinda seemed to be having a tense conversation. "You said that I had the only pair, so what's the deal?" he continued darkly as Kaito listened from a nook down the hallway. _First time I've actually been glad for this little body- no way I could hide myself here normally._

"Where did you find these?" Agasa-hakase sounded a little upset, but more curious than anything.

"I didn't find them, Ookami did. They were in a drawer here," replied Shinda curtly. "Now answer the question. What the heck is another pair of these doin' here?"

"I don't know. Perhaps I left them here while I was repairing them," sighed Agasa before two pairs of footsteps began approaching Kaito's position.

_Gah, I'd better move or it'll be obvious that I was listening in. _The conversation had raised some rather interesting questions, though. What were the glasses, exactly? It sure sounded like Kaito's gut had been correct- there was definitely more to them than met the eye. Now he had to figure out how to get his hands on them and figure out just what was so special about them since Shinda had quite literally grabbed them out of his hands. His phone started ringing just as he'd managed to get back into the room he was supposed to be doing his homework in. He grew puzzled as he looked at his caller ID. _What's Hakuba calling me for? Didn't Aoko tell him that I'm out of town for the foreseeable future? _Kaito debated for another ring on answering the phone. On the one hand, he didn't want to risk Hakuba finding out his secret; on the other, he figured now was as good a time as any to try and practice imitating voices with his smaller set of vocal chords. _I can always fake some static if he starts getting too nosy, after all. _After confirming that there was no one else around, Kaito cleared his throat and pressed the answer key while raising the phone to his ear. "What do you want, Hakuba?" _Whew, at least that sounds fairly close to the normal me._

"Aoko-san mentioned that you were out of town working on a case. You being, well, you, I was curious if you needed any assistance."

"And just what makes you think that I need any help?" Kaito snorted before realizing that he was raising his voice. _I have to be more careful..._

"Well, for starters you've been gone for over a week. Is it _really _taking you that long to solve a case, Kuroba?" Saguru's smug, knowing tone first angered Kaito, then made him nervous. _Why do I have this bizarre feeling that he knows something he shouldn't?_

"It's...complicated, alright?" huffed Kaito after trying to think of the best reply and knowing as soon as he'd said it that it had been exactly the wrong answer. _That'll only make him _more_ nosy, not less._

"The case is complicated? How so?"

"I can't exactly go into it right now, Hakuba," half-muttered Kaito as he looked around to make sure that no one was approaching the room. "But I'm probably going to be gone for a while longer. Now I've gotta go." With that, he hung up and massaged his throat. _Definitely need more practice; my vocal chords started hurting halfway through the first sentence. _

"Kihagi, dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes OK? Maybe you and Shinda can work on your homework together until then," called Ran from down the hallway.

"OK, Ran-neesan," Kaito called brightly before stepping out of the room and bumping right into Shinda, who dropped the glasses thanks to the impact. They fell to the ground and bounced two or three times before stopping at Kaito's feet with a spin. _This is a perfect chance, _thought Kaito with a grin as he picked the glasses up and quickly put them on before Shinda could protest.


	18. Chapter 18

At the request of some readers, I'm going to try and lengthen my chapters going forward. Thanks again to all my wonderful readers and regular reviewers!

* * *

Heiji knew as soon as he watched Kihagi jump up in surprise while running his fingers over the glasses' frames that the other boy had managed to turn on the pair of tracking glasses after putting them on- exactly what Heiji figured would probably happen. _Although why there's even another pair of tracker glasses at this Kudo guy's house in the first place is something I'm definitely gonna have to ask Agasa-hakase about later. In the meantime I'm going to have to try and get those glasses back from Ookami before he figures out what they do. _"Hey Ookami, why'd you jump like that?" _Not that I don't know exactly why already. _Heiji grew irritated after realizing that the other boy wasn't replying, Ookami Kihagi appearing to have all of his attention focused on the grid that would have suddenly appeared in the glasses' lens. "I'm _talkin'_ to you, ya know!" _Damn it! _His ire increased when Heiji realized that he'd slipped into his native Osaka-ben again- a habit he still seemed unable to quite fully shake even after so long of trying to push it under the rug.

"Shinda-kun, Kihagi-kun, it's time for dinner!" Mouri Ran's voice came echoing down the hallway.

_Bah! I guess I'm going to have to try and get the stupid glasses back after we eat now. He's already seen that they do something weird and kids are usually so annoying about that kind of stuff though... _Heiji allowed himself a brief glower as he followed the other boy into the dining room before shifting to a more neutral expression as he joined the rest of the group at the table. _If I was still me he sure wouldn't have grabbed those glasses out of my hands like that. _He sat down at the table, trying to both haul himself into the seat and be careful to not smear the makeup that was covering the tops of his hands on anything.

Well, Heiji supposed that he _was_ still himself- Hattori Heiji, hot-blooded genius teenaged Osakan meitantei- just trapped in a puny, tiny little kid's body that was very annoying and also incredibly frustrating to deal with at times. Of course (as Agasa-hakase constantly reminded him for some reason) he was pretty lucky to even be alive right now; the pill that they'd forced down his throat was _supposed _to have- and _should_ have- killed him instead of shrinking him.

He wished almost every night that he had a way of going back in time so that he could stop himself from heading off to investigate a long-abandoned Osakan warehouse where a very strange murder had occurred earlier in the day. It had been one of his sudden 'gut hunch' impulses, so he'd not only gone there without telling anyone where he was going, he'd _also_ planned to arrive there very late at night when the officers on watch would be changing shifts so that he'd be able to have the empty warehouse to himself for a while.

One of his last memories before starting life as Kogakure Shinda was the feeling of getting hit hard on his head after a deep, male voice had simply said 'That's too bad.' Heiji knew that he'd recognize that voice instantly if he ever heard it again; it was indelibly etched in his mind along with the sensation of being on fire that he'd felt a few moments after he'd unwillingly swallowed the pill. Then he'd woken up who-knows-how-long later in an unfamiliar bed with an absolutely splitting headache and a strange old guy he'd never met before in his life offering him miso soup.

_W-where am I? How did I get here? And who the _hell_ are you? _He remembered wondering why his voice had sounded so small and weak, although he'd attributed it to being knocked out for a while at first.

_You're in Tokyo- the Beika district of Tokyo to be precise; a former student of mine brought you here from Osaka late last night. And my name is Agasa- Agasa Hiroshi._

That's when he'd had the rather embarrassing moment of trying to jump out of the bed to call his parents in spite of the massive headache and falling flat on the floor instead. It was as Heiji had stood back up that he'd quickly realized how much bigger and taller everything around him seemed for some reason- along with the fact that his favorite sweater was dangling loosely on him and was at _least_ six or seven sizes too large.

_You're actually quite lucky to be alive right now, my young friend...although to be frank, you should prepare yourself for quite a shock before you look in the mirror._

"Shinda-kun? Did you want another scoop of curry?"

Heiji blinked and looked up from his empty plate before realizing that Mouri Ran was talking to him- _You'd think after using the stupid name for almost seven months that I'd be used to listening for it. _"I'll take some, thanks," he replied with a nod as he held his plate up.

"So how long have you been staying with Agasa-hakase, Shinda-kun? He was awfully secretive about you," laughed Ran as she handed the refilled plate back to him. "We didn't even realize that he had someone else staying with him until Kihagi-kun happened to see you when he went over there."

"About seven months." _At least Agasa-hakase and I have a cover story cooked up if they get too nosy, not that I wanted to come over here in the first place. _As far as Heiji was concerned, the less people who even saw him in the first place, the better. There was no telling if the guys that had shrunk him had spies anywhere else or not, although in nearly six months of investigation he had yet to even find a single solid lead as to who either of them was. He hadn't even wanted to enroll in the school Agasa-hakase had stuck him in; every time he actually went he spent the entire day paranoid of some kid rubbing his makeup off and then him getting pestered about why he was wearing makeup and why his skin was so dark. His skin tone was one of his most unique (and identifiable) features and he knew it, which was why he'd decided to go along with wearing the stupid stuff when Agasa-hakase had first suggested it.

"So how come you came here from Osaka?" asked Kihagi brightly in between bites of his own food.

_You just had to remind me that I keep slipping back into my Osaka-ben, didn't you ya little twirp? _"My parents decided that I should stay here for a while." This was the actual truth even though he would never reveal the exact reason to anyone that wasn't Agasa-hakase or his parents. It had boiled down to his parents agreeing after a long, tense phone conversation between them, Agasa-hakase and himself that perhaps the young woman who'd whisked him off to Tokyo so suddenly was right- staying as far away from Osaka as possible was probably for the best.

"His mother was a former pupil of mine and she and her husband needed to go on a very extended business trip," explained Agasa further, fully fleshing out the lie that he and Heiji had constructed alongside Heiji's parents.

* * *

_Bah...I want to go ask Kudo what these glasses do, but I have a feeling he'll just take them away from me. _Kaito studied the strange glasses closely behind the locked door of his room, wondering what in the world they were for. _They seem to have some kind of a grid that appears...but for what exactly? _His curiousity was even further roused when he thought back to Kogakure Shinda's repeated attempts to get the glasses away from him, and the other boy's reluctance to leave after dinner had been strange as well. _Just what _are_ these glasses, and why was Shinda being so persistent about trying to get them away from me? _

Kaito heard the beep that indicated a text message coming in from Aoko and picked up his phone. **Kaito, what's taking you so long to solve this new case of yours? You've never been gone this long before; I've never seen it take longer than a couple of days for you to catch a crook even with some of your really hard cases. Hakuba-kun also mentioned something about you maybe needing his help? Oh, and he also said that it sounded like you were sick when you two talked today.**

Kaito sighed in disgust and made a face. That was _just_ like that guy, butting his nose in where it didn't belong and stirring the pot. _And when the heck did I ever tell that guy that I'd need his help? _The other boy's bloodhound-like doggedness while on the trail of the truth had certainly helped Kaito find his own way to a culprit more than once, but that sure didn't mean that Kaito wanted him finding out about what had happened to him. As far as Kaito was concerned the fewer people who knew who he really was, the better (and safer) for everyone- including himself. **I already told you that I'll probably be gone for quite awhile, Aoko. You'll just have to trust me when I say that, well, this case I'm working right now is pretty strange. **OK, _strange _didn't even begin to fully describe living in a seven-year-old body all over again, but it would have to do. He fired off the message after quickly adding **It's just my voice still cracking a bit because I travelled while I was still a little sick, but I'm almost better.**

**Take care of yourself, and maybe actually call me sometime soon instead of just texting me, eh Kaito?**

**OK, Mom. **Kaito snickered as he visualized the face Aoko would make in response to that before he heard a knock on his door. "Hey Kihagi, did you and Shinda happen to find a pair of glasses in your homework drawer tonight?" came Shinichi's muffled voice from the other side.

_Well, since he's come to me about them I guess I have to fess up. Although it's also a good time to try and figure out what exactly they're for... _"Yeah, Shinichi-niisan. I brought them into my room to keep them safe," replied Kaito in as innocent as tone as he could muster while he walked over and opened the door with the pair of glasses in his hand.

"Thanks- I put them there to get them out of the way while I was cleaning and I forgot to put them back." He took the glasses from Kaito and studied them before turning his attention back to Kaito. "Did you guys push the button on them?"

"Yeah. Weird lines show up in the lens when you push it."

Shinichi nodded and smiled. "Yep, these are definitely Agasa-hakase's tracking glasses then. He's been looking for them for a few days now, they probably fell out of his jacket when he dropped the replacement batteries off or something."

"Tracking glasses?"

"Mmhmm. Agasa-hakase got tired of losing his keys and stuff so he decided to make glasses that could track them down easily." Shinichi knelt down and handed the glasses back to Kaito. "Try putting them on and pushing the button on once you've squished one of these onto something," he added as he handed a pair of strange plastic-wrapped objects. They appeared to be some kind of clear gel except for in their centers, where something small and electronic seemed to be encased in the gel. Kaito unwrapped one of the objects to find that what had looked like clear gel was instead some kind of incredibly sticky substance- at least on one side of it. _What the heck? _

"Put it onto the wall- I think Agasa-hakase said they have to be attached to something before they activate."

Kaito walked over to the wall and pressed the sticky side of whatever it was onto the wall. He then pushed the button on the glasses to find that the grid now had a beacon that was showing him not only the wall, but the distance to it as well.

"See? Tracking glasses, although we probably shouldn't waste any more of these things," began Shinichi in a lighthearted tone as he peeled what Kaito now knew to be a tracking beacon of some kind off of the wall and repackaged it as best he could. "Agasa-hakase keeps some around to stick on his keys and little stuff like that so he can find them easily."

_Those glasses could actually be a really useful tool...but how the heck am I going to be able to get the supplies for them? I'd bet that the glasses must run on some kind of battery power, and these little trackers will probably run out of juice eventually as well- plus they seem to be designed for one-time use. Not to mention that I don't wear glasses so Mouri and Kudo both will probably start wondering why I have glasses on sometimes. _

"OK, it's time for bed. I suppose you can keep the glasses in your room until we give them back to Agasa-hakase if you take good care of them." Shinichi shut the door behind him as he left, leaving Kaito furiously wondering how he could try and manage to actually keep the glasses.


	19. Chapter 19

Time for more! Thanks to all my readers, watchers and reviewers. :)

* * *

"I don't know, Kaito. I _might_ be able to put together something like these, but they're fairly sophisticated and some of the electronics are very tiny." Jii continued to study the pair of tracking glasses closely, turning them in several directions and frowning lightly as he looked over their construction. "They also seem to be custom-made. In fact, I'd probably have to take these completely apart to really figure them out." The older man put the glasses down on his living room table and cocked his eyebrow as he turned his attention to Kaito. "Where exactly did you come across these, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Actually, Kudo gave them to me last night." Kaito decided to explain things further after seeing the questions written all over Jii's face. "Well, not _permanently_ but I was hoping to have you make something like them. His neighbor Agasa-hakase made them to help him keep track of small stuff." The magician began fishing in his pockets for the tracking device Shinichi had used earlier to demonstrate the glasses. "They're used with little, clear sticky tracking devices- Kudo slapped one of them onto a wall and it stuck there." Kaito continued rustling around in his pockets, a mix of concern and puzzlement crossing his seven-year-old features as he realized that the carefully rewrapped tracker he'd brought with him to show Jii didn't seem to be in either of his pockets.

"What's wrong, Kaito?"

"I can't find the tracker I brought to show you. I had two of them- I stashed one in the dresser in my room at Kudo's house and brought the other one with me to show you." He turned his pockets inside out in a last, desperate gesture before shaking his head and giving up. "Well, OK. I _thought _I brought it with me. I would have sworn I stuffed it into one of my pockets, though..."

Jii looked like he was mulling something over. "Didn't you go over to Mouri-san's detective agency before you came here earlier, Kaito? Perhaps you dropped it someplace while you were over there."

_Oh yeah, that's right. Kudo had to help Mouri with a school project or something like that, so we went over to the agency. _Kaito had busied himself poking around and trying to listen in on Hirota Misami's conversation with Kogoro, since the young woman had stopped by again with new information. "Yeah, we did go over there after Kudo and Mouri picked me up from school. Maybe it fell out of my pocket." He then realized that Ookami Kihagi's cell phone was vibrating on the floor and answered it.

"Hi Kihagi-kun! Are you ready to leave Konsuke-ojisan's yet?" Ran sounded like she was yelling over traffic. "You still have homework to do, don't you?"

_Oh, come _on. _The stuff will take me maybe ten minutes, tops. _Not that Ran knew that, of course. "Yeah, I do. But can I do it here at Konsuke-ojisan's?"

"You probably really shouldn't be staying there too long and bothering him like that, Kihagi-kun. Shinichi and I will be there in about ten minutes since the bus just pulled up; we'll see you soon, OK?"

_Well, gee, thanks for giving me a choice. _"OK, Ran-neesan." He hung up with a deep sigh. "They're coming to pick me up- guess I'll just have to leave the glasses with you and hope that Kudo doesn't ask about them anytime soon."

"Let's hope not." Jii got up out of his seat. "I just remembered- you wanted any new information I could find on your father's death, right? I managed to pull together most of the articles and press coverage from back then." He pulled out a thick manila folder and handed it to Kaito. "It doesn't surprise me that you don't remember too much, since you were pretty young when it happened."

Kaito climbed up onto the couch and spread the manila folder open, studying the photocopied articles and pictures of his father's death closely for a while. He was surprised to actually find a few things he hadn't seen yet in the pile; he thought he'd seen and studied everything about his dad's murder. "You were there that day, right? Did you see anything strange besides the guys in black hanging around?"

"Unfortunately, no." Jii visibly deflated as he sat back down across from Kaito. "I've gone over that day in my mind over and over, especially after what's happened to you now. The only thing I can clearly remember about them was that they were all wearing long black jackets and black fedora-style hats." He frowned. "They also all managed to scatter and vanish before the explosion, but that's only natural since they were the ones that planned it in the first place."

"Do you know why exactly these guys might have wanted to kill Dad?" Kaito suddenly realized that he'd become so caught up in living life as Ookami Kihagi that he hadn't really had the time to sit down and start looking into his father's murder- murder at the hands of the same men in black that had somehow changed him back into a child with...whatever they'd shoved down his throat. And _that_, of course, was on top of the revelation that Kuroba Toichi had been the master thief Kaitou Kid as well as a master magician.

"I haven't the foggiest," replied Jii sadly. "Of course, your father _was _Kaitou Kid. Perhaps he stole something that angered the wrong people." The older man rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. "But then I suppose that wouldn't make a lot of sense, now that I think about it. He always wound up returning whatever he stole in the end, and he was always _very_ careful about his identity. Your mother and myself were probably the only two people that he told."

"What about this Black Fox guy that used to compete with Dad all the time? Could he have done it to get the competition out of the way, maybe?" Kaito was pointing at an article that talked about Kaitou Kid beating Black Fox to a gem the previous night.

Jii laughed lightly. "I really don't believe that's the case, Kaito." He chose to not elaborate any further in order to protect Kudo Yusaku's identity, even though he could tell that Kaito sensed he knew much more on the subject than he was saying. Jii wasn't a hundred percent certain that Toichi's friend had been the Black Fox, but he felt that the Kudos had begun traveling so far and so frequently after the magician's death for a reason. The fact that the Black Fox's thefts had stopped at the exact same time as Kudo Yusaku's first book tour just added fuel to the fire as far as he was concerned. Of course, the fact that the Black Fox had resurfaced last year raised some interesting questions in Jii's mind, especially since Kudo Yusaku was busier with his travel research and book signing tours than ever.

Kaito gave Jii a suspicious look, but couldn't get the question he wanted to ask out before the doorbell rang. _Has it been ten minutes already? _He was also surprised to see a wary-looking Shinda accompanying Ran and Shinichi as they walked into the room.

"Oh, we're taking care of Shinda tonight because Agasa-hakase has to go to a late dinner," Shinichi said after he saw Kaito's puzzled look. "We have to stop back by Mouri-ojisan's agency real quick, too- I forgot my half of our school project there."

"We just have to be quiet while we're there since Dad's meeting with a client," explained Ran cheerfully before she turned to Kaito. "Do you have your things gathered, Kihagi-kun?"

"Yep," Kaito replied with happiness that he didn't really feel. He had really wanted at least another hour to sit and glean as much information about his dad's death as possible from Jii.

* * *

Once the group arrived at the Mouri Detective Agency, they learned that they'd just missed Hirota Misami. Kogoro was still in the process of finishing out his notes from their meeting while Shinichi searched for his misplaced research project.

"So how is the case you're working on right now going?" asked Shinichi as he continued his search of the living room.

"Lousy," grumbled Kogoro in between deep puffs of his cigarette. He picked up his notes and jabbed his finger at a few hurried lines of writing. "This guy's like a damn ghost. I haven't managed to find anything solid about where he's living since he left Yamagata so suddenly and took the taxi driving job here in Tokyo." He put the notes back down and shook his head. "The only clue I've really got to work with is that betting slip that Hirota-san found in the trash, and there's no address on one of those of course. He _also_ has four cats that he seems to have taken with him, but I've talked to almost all of the apartments in Tokyo that let people have pets and haven't turned up any newer tenants with four cats."

"Four cats?"

"Yeah- I've got their names written down somewhere, not that it'll do me much good unless I can find their owner." Kogoro waved a hand at his stack of notes dismissively. "The names were kind of weird, though. Tee, Kaa, Ou and Goo, or something like that."

"Her dad must've really liked horse racing a lot, huh?" Shinda was looking with apparent disinterest at one of the pieces of paper that Kogoro had written some information about Hirota Kenzou down on. "Well, if these are the names of his cats on this piece of paper," he continued as he held up one of Kogoro's notebook pages.

Kaito looked over after the other boy made the comment, wondering just what Shinda was talking about. _Where did horse racing come into the conversation? She was just naming off her dad's cats, according to what Mouri-ojisan said. _His puzzlement turned to suspicion as he remembered that one of the things Hirota Misami had brought with her had been an old betting slip from a horse racing track. _Maybe Kogakure's on to something after all...but how in the heck did he make that connection?_

"What do you mean by that, Shinda-kun? Those are just the names of her dad's cats, aren't they?" Ran offered the boy her own confused expression.

"Yeah, but look. They make the name of that really good racehorse that's on TV right now when you mix them up." He pointed a finger at the television, then picked up a pen and transformed the kanji for the cat's names from Kai, Tei, Gou and Ou into Goukaiteiou.

"That's true," muttered Shinichi as he turned to Kogoro. "Hey Mouri-ojisan, didn't Hirota-san also bring you an old betting slip from a racetrack near here?" Shinichi studied the TV and cocked an eyebrow. "I think that's where this race is being broadcast from right now, actually."

Ran raced over to the door, waving her hand frantically for the others to follow her. "Let's go down there right now! Maybe he'll be there since his favorite horse is running."

_Can't hurt to try going there, I guess. _Kaito had seen people found (and criminals caught) through even stranger ways and in even weirder places during his detective career, after all. He grabbed his jacket and hurried to follow the rest of the group outside, wondering if they'd strike gold or not down at the racetrack.


End file.
